If a dictator moved into the White House and condemned the populace to servitude, the US political situation might be a lot clearer. But beneath the lies, false campaign promises and empty rhetoric, this is, in effect, exactly what is going on.
"Rich People Rule," the Washington Post proclaimed on April 8, 2014, when the Gilens-Page study made headlines by confirming everyone's suspicions that the elected officials don't give a damn about government of the people, by the people and for the people.
In the study "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," Princeton researcher Martin Gilens and Northwestern University professor Benjamin Page spanned 20 years of Republican and Democratic Congresses and presidents, studying nearly 1,800 issues between 1981 and 2002. The results were startling. Politicians don't represent the average citizen, the study finds. They represent business interests and wealthy elites. Elected officials will not give the common citizen what he or she wants - not by petitions, phone calls, emails, letters, faxes, protests, marches or letters to the editor. Unless the moneyed interests happen to align with the public, politicians always voted against the interests of the citizens.
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