A Boring Dystopia

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Study: Congress literally doesn’t care what you think. The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy. (act.represent.us)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (9 children)

This study is bunk.

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.

That leaves only 185 bills on which the rich and the middle class disagree, and even there the disagreements are small. On average, the groups' opinion gaps on the 185 bills is 10.9 percentage points; so, say, 45 percent of the middle class might support a bill while 55.9 percent of the rich support it.

Bashir and Branham/Soroka/Wlezien find that on these 185 bills, the rich got their preferred outcome 53 percent of the time and the middle class got what they wanted 47 percent of the time.

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-study

^Inb4^ ^10^ ^downvotes^ ^and^ ^0^ ^replies.^

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think the fact that there are ~40% of bills that both rich and middle class Americans oppose is pretty solid proof that congress doesn’t give a shit about what American citizens want them to pass… or am i misinterpreting this?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Also, why the focus on rich and middle class? Is the vast majority of america not "lower"/working class? Edit: it seems like the entire conclusion of the study is based on the influence that money has in politics.

One thing that does have an influence? Money. While the opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America have a “statistically non-significant impact,” economic elites, business interests, and people who can afford lobbyists still carry major influence.

Of course if you focus only on people with money then you will come up with a conflicting result... so yeah. I also feel like I am missing something here.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Us poor people aren't actually people. What we think and believe doesn't matter to people like the original commenter calling this "bunk".

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