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Hang Luong

Professor Kjartan Magnusson

Economy 2020-500

December 9, 2017

Reflective Paper: "Who Rules America?"

In my perspective, as a United State citizen, I'm not quite concern about:" who's going to

become my next president?". Frankly speaking, I already drown in such a busy lifestyle that did

not have time to be a part of our policy decision making. However, I am agreed that most

wealthy individual and business dominated interest groups are playing a huge role in our policy

making progress; which is not a very good thing. The reason why I say that because, these

business groups are going to bent the policy as much as they would like to please their

organization or to even reduce tax (who would know). At the end of day, I am partly at fault due

to my lack on policy making progress.

Upon this quote:" The analysts found that when controlling for the power of economic

elites and organized interest groups, the influence of ordinary Americans registered at a "non-

significant, near-zero level. (Henry)", this is very disappointing that most ordinary citizen does

not have any influence toward to our policy making whatsoever. I thought we are semi-important

toward to our policy making. To read this article, it opened my eye to a different point of view

that I realized one thing: money is an important asset in term of being an influence to our policy

making. Sadly, most average Americans are struggling everyday to earn enough money to

support their families. On the other hand, voting is also one of the impact that a citizen can

contribute to this country.

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According to Henry:"This past 2016 presidential election, only 55% of the registered

voters voted, and 2016 had the lowest voter turnout in 20 years (Henry). This statement means

that we don't care about voting as much as we used to do in the past. This is a very serious

problem that we all need to resolve as a whole. Relatively, I think voting is an easy but a

difficult thing to do. The first reason is if I don't care much about who is going to be our next

president, then a quick vote is all I need. However, if I do care about who is going to be the next

president, then a good research about that candidate including their history, interest, background,

personality will be need to determine if they are a good fit to become our policy maker. As that

being said, I would assume that would be the number one reason why that most people are not

bother to vote! However, that's just my opinion.

A study by Ellen Shearer of the Medill School of Journalism:

"Ordinary citizens in recent decades have largely abandoned their participation in grassroots

movements. In the 1960s and 1970s, politicians responded to the mass mobilization of everyday

Americans as proven by the civil rights and women's movements of that time. But today, no

comparable movements exist. Without a substantial presence at ground level, people-oriented

local interest groups cannot compete against their well-heeled wealthy adversaries." (Henry)

I would say this is not completely the truth compared to what I've seen and heard from

today's protests. For example, a protest about "Black Lives Matter" was going on outside of the

White House was making an influence toward our society. Just to remember, as a protest, we are

not allow to use any sort of violence, but there is no guarantee in the other way around.

Therefore, violence is one of the factor that protesters are being at the disadvantage.

Unfortunately, money have the power to influence people to do things that go against their
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conscience. Most likely, the upper-class are using money and their resource to manipulate our

policy making.

Based on the second article, William stated that there are certain power that can shape the

government policy from outside government. He was saying that the upper class and corporate

community are playing a big role in term of framing debates over public policy and shaping

public opinion. I believed that the corporate community is one way or another helping to shape

the political climate. The reason why they would want to support our political system is because

the system might create many advantages for these corporate in term of making profits and

growing as a bigger empire.

On a good note, these corporate can use their money to create many good foundation to

give back to our community. Based on William: "Tax-free foundations receive their money from

wealthy families and corporations. Their primary purpose is to provide money for education,

research, and policy discussion" (William). Based on this statement, money can become a good

source to help people that in need. Power is one of those words that is easy to understand but

hard to define in a precise manner. But money is the biggest 'power' in the world that can make

an impact in our society based on Henry and William.