Power & Citizenship in American Politics

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I found "Inverted Totalitarianism" by Sheldon Wolin to be very interesting and accurate to today's politics. A quote that stood out to me is "…a party system in which one party, whether in opposition or in the majority, is bent upon reconstituting the existing system so as to permanently favor a ruling class of the wealthy, the well-connected and the corporate, while leaving the poorer citizens with a sense of helplessness and political despair, and, at the same time, keeping the middle classes dangling between fear of unemployment and expectations of fantastic rewards once the new economy recovers.”
Wolin’s quote suggests that the American political system is always trying to change the existing system to work in favor of the wealthy and corporations. The system only promises the poor and middle class but never fulfills its promises. Wolin also states that the poor feel "helplessness" and no hope from the government, and feel there is nothing they can do to better their situation. The government aren't acting towards their promises of solving their problems making the poor feel like they will live like this their whole lives. As for the middle class they feel unsafe and always have the fear of losing their job. The political system isn't helping citizens who need it and not creating the feel of trust in the heart of the American people.
I chose this quote because I feel it best represents the current American political system. Currently we can see that the rich are only getting richer and the poorer getting poorer. This shows how the wealthy are always favored and the government works to represent them and help them more. For example, the new tax bill is going to do nothing for the poor but help the rich and corporations. The poor in America are less likely to be represented and now the little help that they do get has a chance of being stopped. The middle class are as Wolin suggests in fear of losing their jobs and being unemployed because again the government is not doing much about the unemployment rate in America. This shows how things are only getting worse with this kind of political system.

 -Amina Mohamed


Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 11, 2018 at 8:52 PM

    I agree with what you wrote because look at the current state of America. A lot of people are unemployed and the lower class is suffering economically with our political system because it does not benefit them. The new bills that were legislated will affects us not only right now, but in the future. People's lives are at stake and people don't know what to do next.

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