But the researchers critiquing the paper found that middle-income Americans and rich Americans actually agree on an overwhelming majority of topics. Out of the 1,779 bills in the Gilens/Page data set, majorities of the rich and middle class agree on 1,594; there are 616 bills both groups oppose and 978 bills both groups favor. That means the groups agree on 89.6 percent of bills.
Yes, because every single bill that comes up should be equally weighted. The rich definitely care as much about enshrining October 2nd as National French Cruller Donut Day as they do Trump's massive corporate tax cuts.
Buncha poindexter-ass nerds.
Plus what gives the game away isn't whether or not the uber rich and the middle class agree on stuff, it's whether the issues on which they don't agree break democratically or break in favor of the wealthier class. Spoiler alert: the rich win every time.
Ackschually the rich only win 74% of the time so it's totally not an oligarchy
bills getting voted on or not is like such a small part of American government too... the corruption goes much deeper. most of this stuff is already baked in and decided before they write anything down for "public consumption" in Congress
Also like cool so consent manufacturing works. Probably most of what the “middle class” thinks is counter to their own material interest
Okay but for there to be a middle class there has to be aaaaaaaaaa...say it with me
What a bullshit fucking article. Imagine being more of a techno/meritocracy wonk. Literal ghoul shit.
The entire argument of the US not being an oligarchy rests on the assumption that by "rich" they mean $150k a year and "middle class" they mean $50k-$80k a year. Yeah for sure, things are a lot more equal between these two groups. But what about the people at (or below) the poverty line and billionaires, you motherfuckers?
The middle class still gets its preferred policies enacted 26 percent of the time even when the rich are opposed
Be glad you get what you want a quarter of the time, peasants.
Our argument is not that American democracy is perfect,
A fucking 26% success rate doesn't mean "imperfection" or "flawed", it means fucking "terrible failure".
"The idea that the point of democracy is to implement legislative outcomes that are supported by broad-based surveys seems almost like a straw man dreamed up by an eighteenth-century monarchist."
Bitch, this is what a democracy is.
Most Americans aren't very politically engaged — and most don't want to be politically engaged, preferring that professional policymakers make decisions for them, so long as the economy stays on track. What are the odds that they've formed stable, durable opinions on dozens of highly specific policy issues?
Fuck off with your "economy stays on track" bullshit. Give Americans health care. Give them paid time off. Cut the fucking military budget. No one needs "stable, durable opinions on dozens of highly specific policy issues". That's your job you technical nerds.
empirical political scientists like Gilens "assume that the normative standard for a well-functioning democracy is whether policy outcomes track public preferences," political theorists argue that the standard should be "something — as it might seem, almost anything — else."
Fuck these theorists. Name and shame them. What utter ghouls.
But strict responsiveness is not obviously the most important feature of a democracy.
FUCK OFFFFFFFFFFF.
“The idea that the point of democracy is to implement legislative outcomes that are supported by broad-based surveys seems almost like a straw man dreamed up by an eighteenth-century monarchist.”
The democracy understander has logged on 🤡
Vox editors :xi-gun: :stalin-gun-1::stalin-gun-2: :maduro-katana-1::maduro-katana-2:
The whole argument rests on the premise that the "middle class" is able to independently determine their interests. It sure would throw a wrench into this whole rebuttal if, say, the oligarchs also owned the vast majority of media reaching people, thereby influencing their opinions and, say, manufacturing their consent to approve of policies against their own material interests.
:bean-think:
Also wait hold on - the thesis of the piece is that the rich and the middle class "win" about half the time over disagreements. How is it that a tiny group of rich people having an "equal" (unweighted, lol) amount of influence as the much larger middle class evidence of us not having an oligarchy?
It's pretty ballsy they just go into bill statistics while skipping over that in the US only the rich have the power to craft legislation anymore. You can tell the rich you don't like what they're doing and the rich will tell you what they are going to do to you. The US as an oligarchy is such an intuitive thing you really have to fuck your whole brain up to deny it.
Like they want to talk about how when the middle class and rich disagree blah, blah, blah. The middle class aren't allowed to hold seats in government. The disagreement exist so far as there is disagreement within the oligarchy. The middle class has its opinions, but the government is riddled with legislative measures that would nullify their impact on anything. It reminds me of how every time we do presidential elections there is a new crop of young, hopeful people who learn the rules and realize everything is fake in the primaries.
"Wait, they can just purge the voter rolls?"
"What do you mean this whole thing is run by a private organization?"
"They can just ignore our votes and pick someone else if they want?"
"How can they just remove people from the ballots?"
"The US is an oligarchy here's some semi-tortured academic study" is liberals trying and failing to understand the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
And articles like this rejecting it are rejecting even this watered down understanding in order to protect their bosses.
