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Oligarchy In The United States Essay

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Andrew J. Bertram
Andrew Goforth
English 101
November 2, 2016
Oligarchy in the United States In the United States today, our nations government is considered to be a democracy and that is what it has been for many years. Throughout the years, America has been turning into somewhat of an oligarchy. The literal definition of oligarchy is a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution. This means that the country is almost being run by a small group of people that are at the top of our nations wealth. Robert F. Kennedy, an American author and attorney once said, “We are now in a free fall toward old-fashioned oligarchy; noxious, thieving, and tyrannical . . . with a system increasingly tilted toward enriching …show more content…

Our elections are now considered a corrupt and torn apart system and “if our elections get appreciably more corrupt, extending the trajectory they were already on in 2012, the use of the term ‘democracy’ to describe the United States will be inaccurate in even the weakest sense of the term” (Nichols and McChesney). Just in the 2016 election campaigns alone, in between six and seven billion dollars were spent. All of this money was spent to win as many voters as possible to win the election. Some large businesses and other parties donate large amounts of money to the campaign that will benefit their business or values. The winner of the election then may pass policies to benefit their largest donors. It is not fair to the citizens who don't have the money to benefit themselves with policies. Every voter should have the same amount of say in each election, no matter how much money they have to give. The electoral college is the final say in presidential elections. “The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your …show more content…

For this reason, in the following discussion, the word “state” also refers to the District of Columbia. Each candidate running for President in your state has his or her own group of electors. The electors are generally chosen by the candidate’s political party, but state laws vary on how the electors are selected and what their responsibilities are.” (archives.gov 1) Even though the electoral college was decided to have for equal say in the elections, the citizens votes really only rely on the votes of their states electors vote. One thing that goes for the voters is what “happens on Election Day. When the voters in each state cast votes for the Presidential candidate of their choice they are voting to select their state's Electors.” (archives.gov 1) The only problem with this is some electors go different ways than the voters expect them to. Some electors may be considered a democrat and vote republican. The same goes with every

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