By Ian Ziller

The United States is in a serious crisis, but it is not what you think it is. The crisis that the U.S. faces is a threat to our democracy. The question is whether the U.S. is a democracy or not. That has to be considered, and some would say that we are an oligarchy—a government run by the elite. The reason why the U.S. could be considered to be an oligarchy is that most government policy is made by the elite, that is, the rich and the powerful.

There are some who think that the U.S. is no longer a democracy, but an oligarchy. For example, a research study done by Princeton University professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern University professor Benjamin Page concluded that we are not a democracy. The reason why is that most of the laws passed by Congress in recent decades have benefited the wealthy, and have been the ones the people with money have wanted to have passed.

The question of whether we are a democracy or an oligarchy is a tricky one. Is the U.S. still a democracy if the rich and powerful are the ones who overwhelmingly have the most political power? Because if that is the case, then laws that affect the majority of the people do not get passed because the wealthy do not want them to get passed. And the average person who is not a billionaire cannot influence the law-making process as much as someone who is wealthy can.
What can be done about the situation? The U.S. Senate voted to debate amending the U.S. Constitution to overturn “Citizens United”, the Supreme Court ruling that allows for unlimited amounts of money in elections. The best way to solve this problem is to pass this amendment so that corporations and wealthy citizens will not have unlimited power to influence the laws that Congress makes. I do not think that we will really ever be at a place where wealth does not have some influence, but we can at the very least limit the extent of the power that wealth has over our elected officials.