Participation in the American Political System

Understanding how different classes of people in terms of their economic status are involved in politics is further important to know their influence in political systems and the challenges they face. Participation of the Ordinary People A. Voting This is one of the ways that the ordinary people engage themselves in the American political system. Most politicians target the ordinary people as their voters while seeking for poll favors. This is because the large number of people belongs to the low-to-middle class and they are the ones who can be influenced easily to make decisions in large numbers. The ordinary people through pressure groups can express their interest through activism, writing official letters to the respective persons, or peaceful protests. For instance, a movement like Black Lives Matter has in the recent past voiced their voice through protests against unjustified mass killings of the Blacks (American Archive, 2018).

Through such protests, the ordinary people are likely to increase their chances of influencing the government to address the issue that is politically influenced. It is not easy to protest on individual level than it is collaborate with each other. Therefore, the ordinary people always gather together to reinforce their impact in a group. Through that position, ordinary people can get assistance like grants and sponsorship since the representative is likely to understand their problems than another well-off person who could have stood in that position. The probability of this approach making an impact on public policy is high when there is a position that the ordinary people occupy. An ordinary person is likely to interact and mingle with the low-class persons and understand their plights, thus easy to push forth for changes.

Despite the fact that not all the ordinary people will occupy public positions, there is a significant impact on having that representative in an influential position. However, it is likely to be challenging for the person to create an impact on his own without seeking assistance from other ordinary people through coordination. This method cannot be an individual since discussions cannot take place with only one person. To create an impact, it also requires that people coordinate in sharing information so that they can create an impact with the spread of the information. E. Information gathering from Reference Sources This is another simple way of engaging in politics where the ordinary people can show interest through looking for information in magazines, newspapers, internet, and other reference sources.

Finding information is a good starting point for ordinary people to know the political parties, representatives, and political problems that faces the country. The party members also help their representatives to win the hearts of the voters thus spearheading policy making. It is challenging for ordinary people to get membership into political parties and air their opinions since they are usually regarded as insignificant persons. However, ordinary people have the opportunity to influence party’s decisions when they take part in selection processes of the party. The likelihood of ordinary people creating an impact on public policy is low since they are only determinants of party representatives. From the selection of party representative then voting becomes a key method of participating in delegating leaders with duties that entail policy making.

Wealthy individuals or groups have the muscles to push forth for a petition to be heard and decision made in parliament as oppose to an ordinary person. For instance, a petition by Ackerman Shelley (2018) was forwarded to the congress in demand that all United States political candidates should hand in their complete birth records. Signing a petition is likely to have a significant impact on public policies more so when it has been spear headed by a wealthy person who has financial muscles to command the process to be undertaken. Since anyone can submit a petition even a single person and through any means, then it implies that whether an individual or a groups of persons submit the petition then it will still have a significant impact on the public policy.