Election 2020 Social Sciences Book Report Research

Choose one article and follow the instructions to write a report

In this assignment, I am asking you to reflect on the election of 2020.  I have posted 5 interesting articles which I will briefly describe below.  You can find these articles in Canvas/Files/Fascism/Election of 2020.   I’d like you to choose 1, and use it as the basis for a 4-minute voice thread.  None of the articles is about Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.  Only 1 of the articles is written from an essentially pro-Trump perspective: “How Trump Lost,” by Peter Beinart.  Two articles consider how Trump fits into the Republican Party: “How Greenwich Republicans Learned to Love Trump,” by Evan Osnos and “Why Trump Lost,” by Matt Maier.  There will be legal challenges to the vote count in a number of states.  Jane Mayer, in “Why Trump Can’t Afford to Lose,” spells out some of the personal stakes for Trump.  Finally, even assuming the inauguration of Joe Biden in January, 2021, America still faces a challenge to its ability to continue as a democracy.  We are becoming a nation whose government can’t agree on anything.  Paul Krugman lays this out in, “Is America Becoming a Failed State?”

Truthfully, I don’t yet know how the mechanics of your creating voice threads will work.  I’ll be working on that this afternoon. 

But here is how I will score your voice threads (your spoken, recorded reflections on the election of 2020:

2 points for submitting your comments, not shorter than 3.5 minutes nor longer than 5 minutes.  Can I easily hear and understand what you are saying?  Have you turned on your camera?  Are you mostly speaking your lines rather than simply reading from a page?

4 points for a clear explanation of the major points that your chosen author makes.

2 points for a clear explanation of how you respond to your author’s point

A brief note about your and my political points of view.  I voted for Biden.  I felt and I feel that 4 more years of Trump could mean the end of American democracy.  I am pretty sure that, with the exception of the Peter Beinart article, each of the authors I have chosen for you are strongly anti-Trump.  You do not need to share this point of view.  But you must carefully address one of the articles I have provided: explain it and explain your own point of view.