Posted on 08/13/2014 6:29:13 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
A startling new political science study concludes that corporate interests and mega wealthy individuals control U.S. policy to such a degree that "the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."
The startling study, titled "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," is slated to appear in an upcoming issue of Perspectives on Politics and was authored by Princeton University Professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Professor Benjamin Page. An early draft can be found here.
Noted American University Historian Allan J. Lichtman, who highlighted the piece in a Tuesday article published in The Hill, calls Gilens and Page's research "shattering" and says their scholarship "should be a loud wake-up call to the vast majority of Americans who are bypassed by their government."
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Here in Democrat Maryland not only don’t my votes count but my GOP POTUS primary votes don’t either as those are over by the time they reach Maryland, in fact in Maryland the GOP allows independents to vote in their primaries.
This is no surprise.
Surprise, surprise, surprise ...
Lesson learned: Don’t be an average citizen.
What would be more interesting to see if this result has been the same over time and the US has been and always will be an Oligarchy.
The average American voter is disconnected from their government. With virtually no grasp of even basic civics, they vote for the best con man on the ballot, send him or her to D.C., then go back to sleep.
We live in a country where popular votes are overturned by courts, bureaucracies and executive powers all the time. We have lived in an oligarchy run by leftist for a long time.
the difference between the US and USSR? Not so much anymore.
Near zero?!?!?!
Nonsense, I have a 1 in 300,000,000 impact.
Startling? No
The RNC ought to read this. Conservatives know this. They know the disconnect between this and what the founders set forth. A lot didn’t vote for Romney I’d guess those who didn’t vote McCain didn’t vote Romney and the number grew.
The RNC can figure that out and extrapolate from their. It might affect the primary this time. Maybe not
Maybe the RNC is so intent in being the minority they’ll run a Romney again. But it will be very obvious Whatever that’s worth
But this is not at all startling. It’s not even news
When the EPA can condemn the coal mining states to economic disaster, no matter how it hurts thousands of Americans, and this president and his attorney general can refuse to obey laws they don’t like (DOMA), it seems that the Leftist agenda is being forced down the throat of Americans. Polls show that Americans know that Big Government, not Big Business, is the biggest danger to the nation.
Civics class. Ok.
We blame the government school the way BO blames others
Actually parents are the primary teachers. If that’s not the case it’s only so because the people ceded that responsibility. But the truth is parents owe to their children and to our country a basic education in civics
As Eric "Lamp" Holder sez, "voting is our most basic Right".
I agree up to blaming big government as the biggest threat, big government is big business now. They are one and the same and it is getting worse by the day. The amalgamation between the Banksters/subsidized industrialists/media/elected central government is too cozy to overlook IMO.
Your ideas are not 1 in 300,000,000 in theory. Your rights and freedoms are protected by the logically assembled constitution. It is those that are not represented by a usurping oligarchy. They’ve hijacked a lot. Mark Levin pointed out yesterday how the immigration system was unconstitutionally molested in 1962 by the USSC and a supermajority dem congress both houses
No.
You think the founding fathers were cynical and corrupt?
I think you’d better check with a constitutional scholar on that
We get the government we deserve.
Well of course. Been saying that for decades. While conservatives can easily ID left corporatist enemies, the fact that they refuse to ID the ones on the Right is what is going to sink us.
The Koch Bros are NOT our friends. They are NOT Patriots.
There are others. Those people do not know Left from Right. They only know expediency.
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