Small dedicated groups can exercise electoral power beyond their numbers

Evidence

The NRA is a powerful player in gun politics, not only by virtue of its ability to mobilize a passionate membership dedicated to gun rights as a superseding issue. With an apathetic electorate, a dedicated group organized around a narrow issue can exercise electoral power well beyond its numbers. Moreover, as we will see later, the American legislative system grants disproportionate power to small states with a sizable share of rural residents. The NRA wields powerful influence over legislators through both carrots (campaign contributions) and sticks (the threat of electoral opposition) (Spitzer, 2014). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1106

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the vault’s claims about how concentrated interests and authoritarian structures shape policy outcomes over diffuse majorities. — connects to: Undermining facts in democracy needs only a few highly active super-spreaders, not a majority — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 219
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1106