U.S. policy outcomes contradict majority preferences whenever elites or organized interests disagree

Evidence

When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 137

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Core empirical bottom line of Gilens & Page’s ‘Testing Theories of American Politics’ — the canonical ‘economic elites dominate / mass public near-zero influence’ finding that anchors the entire oligarchy debate in political science.

Related

• Majorities of citizens lose when elites and organized interests disagree. (similarity 0.94)
• Economic elites dominate US policy while average citizens exert little influence (similarity 0.87)
• Average citizens have little independent influence on U.S. policy relative to economic elites. (similarity 0.87)
• U.S. policy responds to elites and interest groups, not the public. (similarity 0.87)
• General public opinion barely moves policy outcomes when elite preferences are held constant. (similarity 0.86)
• Anti-majoritarian U.S. design creates asymmetric status quo bias (similarity 0.84)
• Large public majorities favoring policy change lose most of the time. (similarity 0.84)
• Even united elite support does not guarantee policy adoption beyond 56 percent. (similarity 0.84)
• Citizens can win policies without influencing them when elites agree. (similarity 0.84)
• Interest groups shape policy independent of citizen and elite preferences. (similarity 0.83)
• Elite superiority in policymaking should be tested empirically, not assumed (similarity 0.83)
• Economic elites exert the largest independent influence on U.S. policy. (similarity 0.83)
• Average citizens have almost no independent influence over U.S. policy. (similarity 0.83)
• Correlated elite and mass preferences do not reflect citizen influence on policy. (similarity 0.83)
• Interest groups do not amplify majority policy preferences; business groups dominate despite opposing them. (similarity 0.82)