America, Democracy & You: Where Have All the Citizens Gone?

Millions of American citizens feel politically powerless in our self-rule democracy. Political myths tell us citizens are the ultimate political power in our system of government and we buy it-even after, based on personal experience, the myths are shown to be false.To cope with this illusion, Americans do a weird thing-they willingly suspended their disbelief in the political myths and pretend the myths are true. This tug-of-war between political myths and political reality gives rise to a feeling of powerlessness, drives citizens out of the political arena, and places our democracy on autopilot- allowing self-serving interest groups to hijack the politics of who gets what in America. This book exposes the hidden role political myths play in our democracy but more importantly, describes how American citizens can trade-in their mythical popular sovereignty for the real thing-political self-rule, in fact.