About 10 years ago, several Ivy League schools declared that the US could not be considered a democracy (and hadnt been for about 50 years) and should be considered closer to an oligarchy after doing studies on public opinion vs policies enacted by the government since they started keeping track of that (since the 1950s I believe?). The US has always been more of a mix between a republic and a representative democracy anyways, but that’s getting off topic. They compared public opinion of bills compared to the opinion of the wealthy and found that the majority of the time, the wealthy got what they wanted. If I remember correctly, the results were that if a bill was supported by both the wealthy and the general public, it passed about 90% of the time. If a bill was supported by the wealthy and opposed by the general populace, it passed something like 60-70% of the time, and in the opposite situation, the bill would only pass about 30-40% of the time.
The system is broken at a base level, between gerrymandering, Bush Jr. letting money sway policy even more blatantly than it already had, lifelong appointments (even for a number of unelected positions), and a myriad of other issues. 60% of Americans are considered to be more liberal than the government.
But, you’re right that complaining once every 4 years isn’t going to fix it. One of the reasons that Republicans have such a stranglehold over the government is that they have a base of supporters who will go out and vote for every single little thing, every time. And many of them can afford to because they’re retirees or wealthy enough to be able to take time off to vote whenever. As my grandfather used to say, “Im a Republican, I vote for the nominee.” What we need is to create support networks to help get people to the polls so we can vote in local officials who will help to get the bigger stuff rolling. Voting in the lesser of two evils every 4 years is only a stopgap measure.
About 10 years ago, several Ivy League schools declared that the US could not be considered a democracy (and hadnt been for about 50 years) and should be considered closer to an oligarchy after doing studies on public opinion vs policies enacted by the government since they started keeping track of that (since the 1950s I believe?). The US has always been more of a mix between a republic and a representative democracy anyways, but that’s getting off topic. They compared public opinion of bills compared to the opinion of the wealthy and found that the majority of the time, the wealthy got what they wanted. If I remember correctly, the results were that if a bill was supported by both the wealthy and the general public, it passed about 90% of the time. If a bill was supported by the wealthy and opposed by the general populace, it passed something like 60-70% of the time, and in the opposite situation, the bill would only pass about 30-40% of the time.
The system is broken at a base level, between gerrymandering, Bush Jr. letting money sway policy even more blatantly than it already had, lifelong appointments (even for a number of unelected positions), and a myriad of other issues. 60% of Americans are considered to be more liberal than the government.
But, you’re right that complaining once every 4 years isn’t going to fix it. One of the reasons that Republicans have such a stranglehold over the government is that they have a base of supporters who will go out and vote for every single little thing, every time. And many of them can afford to because they’re retirees or wealthy enough to be able to take time off to vote whenever. As my grandfather used to say, “Im a Republican, I vote for the nominee.” What we need is to create support networks to help get people to the polls so we can vote in local officials who will help to get the bigger stuff rolling. Voting in the lesser of two evils every 4 years is only a stopgap measure.