Alice: Support In democracies, politicians garner support by emphasizing the differences between their opponents and themselves. ███████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ █████████ ████████ ██ ███████████ █████████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ████████ ████████
███████ ███ ███████ ████████ █████████ ██ ███ ████████ ████████ ██████████ ██ ████████████ ███████████ ███████ ███ ██ █████████ █████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ██████ ████ ████ ███ ████████
Alice argues that in democracies, policies change wildly between different governing parties. Why does this happen? Because parties get votes by focusing on their differences. They then have to govern based on those campaign promises. This means that each new government will enact very different policies from the previous government.
Elwell doesn’t state a conclusion, but implies the conclusion that policy doesn’t change that dramatically between governing parties. Why not? Because whoever gets elected must usually compromise to form a coalition, so actual policies are less extreme than the campaign would suggest.
We’re looking for a disagreement. Alice and Elwell disagree about their conclusions: whether or not policies wildly fluctuate between governing parties in a democracy.
The statements above provide the ████ ███████ ███ ███ █████ ████ █████ ███ ██████ ████████ █████ ███████
politicians heighten the ███████████ ███████ ██████████ ███ █████ █████████ ██████ █████████
Alice agrees with this, stating it directly, but Elwell doesn’t disagree. Elwell seems to accept this statement as a fact, focusing instead on actual policy being more moderate than election rhetoric.
basic policies change ███████████ ████ ███ █████ ████████ ███████ ██ █ █████████
Alice agrees with this, and Elwell disagrees: this is the disagreement. This is the conclusion Alice’s argument explicitly supports. Elwell’s argument implies that this is incorrect by emphasizing the factors that make policy more moderate.
in a democracy ███ ████ ███ ██ ████████ ██████████ ██ ████████ ██ ██ ████ █ █████████ ██████████
Neither speaker talks about how to ensure continuity in policies. Even Elwell, who discusses coalition-building as a factor that does ensure more continuity, never mentions if there might be a better way to do so.
most voters stay █████ ██ █ ██████████ █████████ █████ ████ ██ ██ ███████ ███ █████ ██ ██████████ ██████
Neither speaker mentions whether voters are loyal or not. Both speakers focus on the rhetoric and behavior of political parties, without spending much time on voters at all.
the desire of ███████ ██ █████ ████████ ██████████ █████ ██ ███████ ██████████ ███████
Neither speaker talks about whether political parties’ behavior supports democratic systems or not. Both are only speaking within the context of a democracy, without mentioning what can strengthen or weaken democracy.
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