Jimmy Carter: The U.S. Is an “Oligarchy With Unlimited Political Bribery”
stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to 
theintercept.com
According to the former president, Americans are now experiencing "a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors."
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And didn't this come from research conducted at a major university, studying what bills are passed/ enacted, and which ones fail?
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B : Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens 18 September 2014
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy 17 April 2014
https://act.represent.us/sign/usa-oligarchy-research-explained/ : The US is an Oligarchy? The research Explained -
https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-study : Remember that study saying America is an oligarchy? 3 rebuttals say it's wrong. 9 May 2016
"There's only one problem: Research published since then has raised serious questions about this paper, both its finding and its analysis. This is, of course, how normal science works; some academics put a finding out there, and their peers pick it apart.
But the study has become a frequently invoked piece of evidence in debates about money in politics, and the public and political debate has not kept up with the scholarly one. And the latest scholarly critiques suggest that while the rich certainly have more political influence than the middle class, ordinary Americans still win a substantial share of the time, even when the affluent oppose them."
I'm glad to see some rebuttals, AND our democracy is definitely flawed.
That Vox article is extremely well done. Count me among those who had heard the hyped original study, but not the rebuttals.
Still a really shitty ratio, and I even loved the original authors' responses to the rebuttals. Makes me hope they do a follow up.
So much nuance behind what is acceptable when the US is a representative democracy (supposed to assume the representative is more educated on a voting topic than we are, so maybe our opinion is not as important a factor anyway).
Yeah... which means the rebuttals can be picked apart, too. I've read one of them... it doesn't actually seem all that solid to me. Can't say much about the other two.