Gilens And Page's Argument Analysis

Even if the affluent are rational voters, focusing on their views would still result threaten the democracy of America because the views of the general public are not being met. Furthermore, the average citizen might not be as incompetent as generally assumed since they are able to use political cues to make informed decisions.
In addition to the argument of the affluent as rational voters, Gilens and Page argues in their article, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens” that politics is not a zero sum game because the views of the average citizens correlate with some of the preference of elites. But his data insufficient because his definition of affluent voters differs from the definition of affluent voters in this paper. Gilens “affluent” respondents in his study, were households with an annual income of only $146,000, as opposed to the .01% who make more than over 100 million dollars annually. Although the affluent voters Gilens describe make more than the average voter, and more than low income voters, their views are still highly correlated to one another because the gap between their incomes are not as significant. As demonstrated with people in the higher income bracket, the more money they earn the more involved they are with politics because of the policies that can
For example, others claim that campaign contributions are not a form of bribe used by interest groups to gain access to politicians, but rather campaign contributions are a result from politicians extorting business interest groups (Gilens et al 568). But this argument does not have sufficient evidence to support its claim. Moreover, if politicians are extorting interest groups for contributions, then one can assume that policies would not reflect the preferences of interest groups, but they