Editing Politics of the United States (section)

=== Disconnect between public opinion and government policy===
A disconnect between "the power to set government policy" and political opinions of the general public has been noted by  commentators and scholars (such as [[David Leonhardt]]).<ref name="Leonhardt-NYT-17-9-22"/> The United States is "far and away the most countermajoritarian democracy in the world," according to Steven Levitsky.<ref>A professor of government at Harvard University and a co-author of the book ''How Democracies Die'', with Daniel Ziblatt. Quoted in {{cite news |last1=Leonhardt |first1=David |title=DEMOCRACY CHALLENGED 'A Crisis Coming': The Twin Threats to American Democracy |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/17/us/american-democracy-threats.html |access-date=September 20, 2022 |date=September 17, 2022}}</ref>

Before the 2000 election, only three candidates for president won "while losing the popular vote ([[John Quincy Adams]], [[Rutherford Hayes]] and [[Benjamin Harrison]]), and each served only a single term", while as of 2022 "two of the past four presidents have taken office despite losing the popular vote"<ref name="Leonhardt-NYT-17-9-22"/> - [[2000 United States presidential election|George W. Bush in 2000]] and [[2016 United States presidential election|Donald Trump in 2016]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38254946 |title=Did Clinton win more votes than any white man in history? |date=December 12, 2016 |publisher=[[BBC News]] |access-date=September 9, 2018}}</ref>

Leonhardt points out that in one branch of the federal government—the Supreme Court—conservative legal decisions "both sweeping and, according to polls, unpopular" were delivered in 2022, what is likely the beginning of a reshaping of "American politics for years, if not decades" to come by the court's "Republican appointees". This is despite the fact that the president appoints the nominees, and that presidential candidates of the Democratic Party have won the popular vote in seven out of eight last elections (from 1992 to 2020).<ref name="Leonhardt-NYT-17-9-22"/>

In the 2020 U.S. Senate, "50 Democratic senators effectively represent 186 million Americans, while the 50 Republican senators effectively represent 145 million".<ref name="Leonhardt-NYT-17-9-22"/>

Explanations include:
 
* geographical sorting by ideology. "Parts of the country granted outsize power by the Constitution" (i.e. less populated states), formerly voted more or less similarly to the large states and urban areas that were granted less power. Thus "the small-state bonus" giving disproportionate power in "the Senate and Electoral College had only a limited effect on national results". This is no longer the case. Rural areas are more uniformly conservative and urban areas liberal.<ref name="Leonhardt-NYT-17-9-22"/> More important is "the winner-take-all nature of the Electoral College" (all states except Maine and Nebraska), which gives greater bias to Republicans.<ref name="Leonhardt-NYT-17-9-22"/>
* faster population growth of large (population) states than small states.<ref name="Leonhardt-NYT-17-9-22"/> The state with the largest population in 1790 was Virginia with approximately 13 times as many residents as the smallest (Delaware). Today, "California, which consistently votes for liberal candidates statewide,  "has 68 times as many residents as Wyoming; 53 times as many as Alaska; and at least 20 times as many as another 11 states". When a candidate wins a statewide election in California (or New York) by a landslide, these large numbers of popular votes mean nothing in the tally of [[United States Electoral College|Electoral College]] votes or Senate seats.<ref name="Leonhardt-NYT-17-9-22"/>
* while the House of Representatives would seem to have "a more equitable system for allocating political power"—dividing the country "into 435 districts, each with a broadly similar number of people" (760,000 as of 2022)—Leonhardt argues two features distort this equity:
** [[gerrymandering]], i.e. the drawing of district boundaries by State legislatures for partisan advantage, something Republicans have been "more forceful"  about in recent years.<ref name="Leonhardt-NYT-17-9-22"/>
** the phenomenon of "[[wasted vote]]s", whereby the increasing concentration of Democratic voters in large metro areas means Democrats often win elections in these districts by "[[Landslide victory|landslides]]", leading to the overall nationwide proportion of votes for Democrats significantly less than the proportion of seats for Democrats in the House.<ref name="Leonhardt-NYT-17-9-22"/>

====Oligarchy====
{{Further|Income inequality in the United States#Effects on democracy and society}}
In 2014, [[United Press International]] reported that the political structure of the United States has become an [[oligarchy]], where a small economic elite overwhelmingly dominate policy and law.<ref name=sevcik-2014>Sevcik, J.C. (April 16, 2014) [http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/04/16/The-US-is-not-a-democracy-but-an-oligarchy-study-concludes/2761397680051/ "The US is not a democracy but an oligarchy, study concludes"] ''UPI''</ref> Some academic researchers suggest a drift toward oligarchy has been occurring by way of the influence of corporations, wealthy, and other special interest groups, leaving individual citizens with less impact than economic elites and organized interest groups in the political process.<ref name="GilensPage">{{cite journal |title=Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens |author1=Martin Gilens |author2=Benjamin I. Page |name-list-style=amp |journal=[[Perspectives on Politics]] |date=2014 |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=564–581 |doi=10.1017/S1537592714001595 |url=|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>[[Thomas Piketty|Piketty, Thomas]] (2014). ''[[Capital in the Twenty-First Century]].'' [[Belknap Press]]. {{ISBN|067443000X}} p. 514: *"the risk of a drift towards oligarchy is real and gives little reason for optimism about where the United States is headed."</ref><ref>(French economist Thomas Piketty), Associated Press, December 23, 2017, [http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-qa-a-french-economists-grim-view-of-wealth-gap-2014apr23-story.html Q&A: A French economist's grim view of wealth gap], Accessed April 26, 2014, "...The main problem to me is really the proper working of our democratic institutions. It's just not compatible with an extreme sort of oligarchy where 90 percent of the wealth belongs to a very tiny group ..."</ref><ref>Alan Wolfe (book reviewer),  October 24, 2010, The Washington Post, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/22/AR2010102203010.html Review of "The Mendacity of Hope," by Roger D. Hodge], Accessed April 26, 2014, "...Although Hodge devotes a chapter to foreign policy, the main charge he levels against Obama is that, like all politicians in the United States, he serves at the pleasure of a financial oligarchy. ... "</ref>

An April 2014 study by political scientists Martin Gilens ([[Princeton University]]) and [[Benjamin Page]] ([[Northwestern University]]) concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the interests of the majority of its citizens but instead is "ruled by those of the rich and powerful".<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Gilens |first1=Martin |last2=Page |first2=Benjamin I. |date=September 2014 |title=Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B |journal=Perspectives on Politics |language=en |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=564–581 |doi=10.1017/S1537592714001595 |issn=1537-5927}}</ref> The researchers after analyzing nearly 1,800 U.S. policies between 1981 and 2002, stated that government policies tend to favour special interests and lobbying organizations, and that whenever a majority of citizens disagrees with the economic elites, the elites tend to prevail in getting their way.<ref name="GilensPage" /> While not characterizing the United States as an "oligarchy" or "[[plutocracy]]" outright, Gilens and Page give weight to the idea of a "civil oligarchy" as used by [[Jeffrey A. Winters]], saying, "Winters has posited a comparative theory of 'Oligarchy,' in which the wealthiest citizens—even in a 'civil oligarchy' like the United States—dominate policy concerning crucial issues of wealth- and income-protection." In their study, Gilens and Page reached these conclusions:

{{Blockquote|When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it. ... [T]he preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1017/S1537592714001595 |quote=When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."|title=Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens|year=2014|last1=Gilens|first1=Martin |last2=Page|first2=Benjamin I.|journal=Perspectives on Politics|volume=12|issue=3|pages=564–581|doi-access=free}}</ref>}}

[[E. J. Dionne Jr.]] described what he considers the effects of ideological and oligarchical interests on the judiciary. The journalist, columnist, and scholar interprets recent [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] decisions as ones that allow wealthy elites to use [[economic power]] to influence political outcomes in their favor. In speaking about the Supreme Court's ''[[McCutcheon v. FEC]]'' and ''[[Citizens United v. FEC]]'' decisions, Dionne wrote: "Thus has this court conferred on wealthy people the right to give vast sums of money to politicians while undercutting the rights of millions of citizens to cast a ballot."<ref>E. J. Dionne Jr., April 6, 2014, ''The Washington Post'', [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-jr-supreme-oligarchy/2014/04/06/823f15ea-bc2e-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html Supreme oligarchy], Accessed April 26, 2014. "...Thus has this court conferred on wealthy people the right to give vast sums of money to politicians while undercutting the rights of millions of citizens to cast a ballot."</ref>

Nobel Prize–winning economist [[Paul Krugman]] wrote:

{{Blockquote|The stark reality is that we have a society in which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people. This threatens to make us a democracy in name only.<ref>Paul Krugman, ''The New York Times'', November 3, 2011, [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/opinion/oligarchy-american-style.html Oligarchy, American Style], Accessed April 26, 2014</ref>}}

A November 2022 study by [[Pew Research Center]] showed that majorities in both the Republican and Democratic parties held increasingly negative views of major financial institutions and large corporations.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/11/17/anti-corporate-sentiment-in-u-s-is-now-widespread-in-both-parties/|title=Anti-corporate sentiment in U.S. is now widespread in both parties|last1=Dunn|first1=Amina|last2=Cerda|first2=Andy|date=November 17, 2022 |website=Pew Research Center |publisher= |access-date=November 28, 2022 |quote=}}</ref>

==== Gerrymandering ====
{{Main|Gerrymandering in the United States}}

[[Gerrymandering]] is the practice  of shaping the boundaries of [[electoral district]]s for partisan advantage—those boundaries  being reviewed and usually changed after every [[United States census]], i.e. every ten years. Gerrymandering involves what's commonly called "cracking and packing".

* "Cracking" is the process of moving the boundaries of districts to spreads opposition voters thinly enough across many districts so that they constitute  a safe margin below 50%. Cracking spreads opposition voters thinly across many districts to dilute their power. 
* "Packing" is the process of concentrating opposition voters in one or more (but always a minority of) districts, to "waste" opposition votes.<ref name="Short-2018">{{cite news |last1=Short |first1=John Rennie |title=4 Reasons Gerrymandering Is Getting Worse |url=https://umbc.edu/stories/4-reasons-gerrymandering-is-getting-worse/ |access-date=September 27, 2022 |work=UMBC Magazine |date=29 October 2018}}</ref>

Used almost since the founding of the United States (the term was coined in 1810 after a review of [[Massachusetts]]'s redistricting maps of 1812 set by Governor [[Elbridge Gerry]] noted that one of the districts looked like a [[salamander]]),<ref name="Short-2018"/> in the 21st century it has "become a much more effective tool".<ref name="Short-2018"/> Since 2010, detailed maps and high-speed computing have facilitated gerrymandering by political parties in the redistricting process, in order to gain control of state legislation and congressional representation and potentially to maintain that control over several decades, even against shifting political changes in a state's population. It allows the drawing of districts "with surgical precision".<ref name="Short-2018"/>
According to Julia Kirschenbaum and Michael Li of the Brennan Center

<blockquote>In 2010, Republicans—in an effort to control the drawing of congressional maps—forged a campaign to win majorities in as many state legislatures as possible. It was wildly successful, giving them control over the drawing of 213 congressional districts. The redrawing of maps that followed produced some of the most extreme gerrymanders in history. In battleground Pennsylvania, for example, the congressional map gave Republicans a virtual lock on 13 of the state's 18 congressional districts, even in elections where Democrats won the majority of the statewide congressional vote.<ref name="Kirschenbaum-12-8-21">{{cite web |last1=Li |first1=Michael |last2=Kirschenbaum |first2=Julia |title=Explainer. Gerrymandering Explained |url=https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/gerrymandering-explained |publisher=Brennan Center |access-date=September 27, 2022 |date=August 12, 2021}}</ref></blockquote>

Attempts to appeal to the Supreme Court to disallow gerrymandering in cases such as ''Vieth v. Jubelirer'' in 2004 and its passing up of "numerous opportunities" in 2017 and 2018 "to decide upon the constitutional legality or illegality of gerrymandering" has "emboldened ever more partisan gerrymandering".<ref name="Short-2018"/>

In addition to giving  one party power beyond its popular support, gerrymandering has been criticized for weakening the political power of  minority voters by concentrated them into  district(s) (though this process can also help ensure the election of a representative of the same race).<ref name=":5" />