Large public majorities favoring policy change lose most of the time.

Evidence

Because of the impediments to majority rule that were deliberately built into the U.S. political system—federalism, separation of powers, bicameralism—together with further impediments due to anti-majoritarian congressional rules and procedures, the system has a substantial status quo bias. Thus when popular majorities favor the status quo, opposing a given policy change, they are likely to get their way; but when a majority—even a very large majority—of the public favors change, it is not likely to get what it wants. In our 1,779 policy cases, narrow pro-change majorities of the public got the policy changes they wanted only about 30 percent of the time. More strikingly, even overwhelmingly large pro-change majorities, with 80 percent of the public favoring a policy change, got that change only about 43 percent of the time. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 106

Categorization

• XREF: The 30% and 43% success rates for even 80% pro-change majorities connect to the reader’s core inquiry on ‘control deficit’ operationalization — the institutional status-quo bias is the mechanism plausibly separating narrative claims from actual clout. — connects to: General public opinion barely moves policy outcomes when elite preferences are held constant. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 97; Majority support for policy change usually fails to produce reform. — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor: Status Quo Bias in…, 54; Policies backed by over half the public still mostly fail to pass — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor: Status Quo Bias in…, 99 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Majority support for policy change usually fails to produce reform. #expands (0.95) — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor, 54
• Policies backed by over half the public still mostly fail to pass #expands (0.95) — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor, 99
• U.S. policy outcomes contradict majority preferences whenever elites or organized interests disagree #corroborates (0.88)
• Large protest events repeatedly fail to produce lasting political change #exemplifies (0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1952
• Repoliticization has not translated into popular policy control #exemplifies (0.78) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 26