What sort of clowns say that the US is an oligarchy?

[Warren Stupidity]

Testing Theories of American Politics:
Elites, Interest Groups, and Average
Citizens

Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American politics—which can be characterized as theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic-Elite Domination, and two types of interest-group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism—offers different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public policy: average citizens; economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented.

A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page American Political Science Association 2014
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf

Martin Gilens is Professor of Politics at Princeton University ([e-mail]). His research examines representation, public opinion, and mass media, especially in relation to inequality and public policy. Professor Gilens is the author
of Affluence & Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America (2012, Princeton University Press). Benjamin I. Page is Gordon S. Fulcher Professor of Decision Making at Northwestern University ([e-mail]). His research interests include public opinion, policy making, the mass media, and U.S. foreign policy. He is currently engaged in a large collaborative project to study Economically Successful Americans and the Common Good. For helpful comments the authors are indebted to Larry Bartels and Jeff Isaac, to the anonymous reviewers fromPerspectives on Politics, and to seminar participants at Harvard University and the University of Rochester.

Meh. Just some idiots at Princeton and Northwester.

Here another clown gives a brief survey of the current thinking by lots of other clowns about what has happened to our political system. Keep in mind that these people are all clowns, obviously because they think our system has become some sort of oligarchy, so their opinions should be evaluated on that basis:

The Transformation of American Democracy to Oligarchy

The United States has the world’s largest economy, is the most important contributor to scientific advancements, has the most powerful military and some of the best universities in the world, is a democratic state, and accepts more immigrants than any other nation. But, over time the democratic foundations of the United States, equality of the citizens and their human rights, have been eroding. It is impossible to make inequality a pillar of the structure of the state and deepen its roots, and yet to be proud and claim that the citizens have equal voting rights. When all types of inequalities take deep roots and expand, citizens lose their power to influence the political process. Let us take a look at some facts.

...
In his books, Inequality Examined, Development as Freedom, and The Idea of Justice, Harvard Professor and Indian economist and philosopher Amartya Sen links equality to the capabilities theory, an idea that was expanded by Martha Nussbaum, a philosopher and Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, in her book, Women and Human Development.
...
Speaking about the widening economic gaps in the United States in July 2013, President Obama pointed out that the American middle class has hardly experienced any significant wage increase over the preceding decade, and that the “American dream” is turning into a myth.
...
In his book, The Price of Inequality, American economist and Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001, demonstrates that, over the past few decades, economic inequality has increased dramatically. He shows that 1 percent of the American people own 25 percent of the total wealth.
...
In his article in the New York Times in 2013, Robert Putnam, Professor of public policy at Harvard University also argued that the “American dream” is being destroyed.
...
To prove his point that “money is an enemy of democracy,” Rawls referred to the article , The Curse of American Politics, by Ronald Dworkin. Rawls offered a masterful critique of the economic gap in the United States, and pointed out that lobbies for American corporations have transformed Congress to a center for buying and selling laws
...
In his 2014 essay, America in Decay, conservative political scientist Francis Fukuyama analyzed that processes that have contributed to the decay of democracy in the United States
...
Former President Jimmy Carter believes that the American democracy has been transformed to an oligarchy.
...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/akbar-ganji/the-transformation-of-ame_1_b_7945040.html
Akbar Ganji
Dissident Iranian journalist; Intl. Press Association World Press Freedom Hero
Akbar Ganji is an investigative journalist who was imprisoned for more than six years in Iran. He currently lives in exile in the United States, and his writings have been banned in Iran. He has been named honorary citizen of many European cities. Ganji has won several international awards, including the World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom Award, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression's International Press Freedom Award, the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, the Cato Institute Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty and the John Humphrey Freedom Award.

Clowns. Every last one of them.