“The preferences of the average American appear to have a minuscule, near zero, non-significant impact upon public policy.”
— Martin Gilens & Benjamin I. Page (2014)
Why Everything Keeps Getting Worse — And Why Nothing Ever Gets Fixed
From inflation and housing costs to healthcare, climate change, immigration, gun violence, and perpetual war, Americans across the political spectrum share the same frustration: nothing ever seems to get fixed.
No matter who is elected or which party holds power, the problems that most affect daily life persist, worsen, or cycle endlessly without resolution. Over time, this creates a deep and corrosive sense of powerlessness—the feeling that ordinary people no longer have meaningful control over the decisions that shape their lives.
That feeling isn’t imagined. Multiple independent studies, including the one quoted above, have shown that the preferences of average Americans have little to no measurable impact on public policy outcomes, while wealthy and well-connected interests exert outsized influence over what our government does—and does not—do.
These outcomes are not accidents or policy failures — they are the predictable result of a political system that has been structurally redesigned to take power away from the people, preventing us from using our government to do the big things it should: solve the shared problems that shape our lives.
How Did This Happen?
Beginning in the mid-20th century, a coordinated legal and political project took shape with a clear objective: to reduce democratic constraints on wealth and power. Rather than dismantling democratic institutions outright, this effort worked through the courts, case by case, decision by decision — largely outside of public view, but with enormous consequences.
Over time, a series of Supreme Court rulings steadily redefined core constitutional ideas. Money spent to influence politics came to be protected as free speech, while corporations were granted ever-expanding constitutional rights originally meant for people. These changes reshaped the incentives of the entire system, allowing economic power to be converted directly into political power.
Most people have heard of Citizens United. It’s often treated as the moment everything broke. In reality, it was not the beginning — it was the culmination. Citizens United did not create this framework; it consolidated and accelerated a trajectory that had been developing for decades.
This was not a side effect. It was the point.
By operating through the judiciary and shifting these changes into constitutional law, they were placed beyond ordinary democratic correction. Voters could not simply vote them out. Legislatures could not meaningfully restrain them. Over time, the rules governing elections, representation, and public policy were rewritten in ways that systematically favored concentrated wealth over broad public participation.
The result is an American political system that still looks democratic on the surface, but no longer reliably responds to the will of the people. And because Supreme Court decisions establish constitutional law, restoring that responsiveness ultimately requires a constitutional amendment initiated by the people themselves.
This wasn’t a policy failure. It was structural.
A functioning democracy depends on political equality — the idea that each person’s voice carries comparable weight in shaping public decisions. When representation no longer reflects the will of the public, voting becomes symbolic rather than effective. People lose faith in their democratic freedom and self-government breaks down.
Electoral districts are increasingly drawn to protect power rather than reflect voters. This weakens competition, entrenches incumbents, and leaves many elections effectively decided before any votes are cast.
When private money is allowed to dominate campaigns and elections, political influence shifts away from voters and toward those with the greatest financial resources. This distorts representation by giving a wealthy few far greater reach, access, and impact than the general public.
Corporations were never intended to function as political actors equal to citizens. As corporate legal rights expanded, large institutions gained the ability to shape law, regulation, and public policy in ways individual people cannot, shifting power away from democratic accountability and toward permanent, private interests.
When economic power is allowed to convert directly into political power, inequality compounds itself. Over time, wealth becomes increasingly concentrated at the top, while policy decisions reinforce that concentration—limiting competition, reducing mobility, and leaving fewer people with meaningful influence over the system that governs them.
When political power shifts away from voters, accountability breaks down. Officials and institutions face weak or no consequences for ignoring or running against public interests, while oversight mechanisms meant to check abuse of power become easier to evade or neutralize.
When people realize their voices no longer matter in the decisions that govern their lives, trust collapses. Participation gives way to powerlessness, and self-government — the core promise of a free people — is reduced to symbolism rather than reality.
These failures are not isolated, and they are not inevitable. They are the predictable result of a political system whose rules no longer protect the most basic freedom of a self-governing people: the ability to meaningfully shape the decisions that govern their lives. Restoring that freedom requires more than policy changes or electoral swings. It requires renewing democratic accountability at the constitutional level — with the people themselves reclaiming their role in defining how power is exercised.
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