Why Millions of Americans Feel Like They Have No Power Over Their Lives - By Robert Reich

[kpete]

ECONOMY
We have fewer choices than ever, in just about every area of life.
/ Robert Reich's Blog April 27, 2015


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Our complaints go nowhere. Often we can’t even find a real person to complain to. Automated telephone menus go on interminably.

Finally, as voters we feel no one is listening because politicians, too, face less and less competition. Over 85 percent of congressional districts are considered “safe” for their incumbents in the upcoming 2016 election; only 3 percent are toss-ups.

In presidential elections, only a handful of states are now considered “battlegrounds” that could go either Democratic or Republican.

So, naturally, that’s where the candidates campaign. Voters in most states won’t see much of them. These voters’ votes are literally taken for granted.

Even in toss-up districts and battle-ground states, so much big money is flowing in that average voters feel disenfranchised.

In all these respects, powerlessness comes from a lack of meaningful choice. Big institutions don’t have to be responsive to us because we can’t penalize them by going to a competitor.

And we have no loud countervailing voice forcing them to listen.

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the rest:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/robert-reich-dissects-real-reason-why-so-many-americans-feel-powerless

[onecaliberal]

1. Because we do what we're told. We play by the rules,

But it doesn't make one bit of difference.
Banks can steal your life savings. Employers can pay slave wages. College education is out of reach for millions of families now. The governor can mismanage your pension until almost nothing is left for you. Life seems hopeless, because for so many it is.

[The2ndWheel]

2. E pluribus unum

Mass society gets bigger, each person in it has less say. It only makes sense.

You've got the House and the Senate, where one person somehow represents hundreds of thousands or millions of people at one time. That's physically impossible. You could add more seats to government, but there are probably too many cooks in the kitchen as it is.

[MisterP]

3. but we could get things done and elect representative representatives

who could overcome the time-serving corporatists, from Hoover to Reagan: what changed was an end to regional shifts in voting patterns (leaving the present GOP as the only alternative political configuration), and the Dems shifting to moneymaking over running on issues