ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” article. It is an editorial by the editor.

“Let the will of the people be heard.” — Activist Albert Parsons’ last words before he was hanged at Haymarket Square in Chicago, 1886.

I’ve long held that politicians have ignored the wishes of the people and instead have legislated on behalf of those who have enough money to fund their campaigns. My contentions often have been dismissed by friends and foes alike, who insist we have a splendid electoral system reflecting popular opinion.

Some detractors admonish me by saying we don’t live in a democracy; we live in a republic. Here’s the difference, according the dictionary:

Republic — “a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.”

Democracy — “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.”

How different are they, really?

The much-despised film maker Michael Moore, at the end of one of his most recent movies, listed a number of issues in which he maintained a majority, even a super majority sometimes, has been polled consistently at odds with our toady, do-nothing lawmakers.

So, I decided to look it up myself, using the modern miracle of Google, to learn from polling from a variety of these services. Here is what I found:

• Medicare for All — Kaiser Family Foundation Poll says the public is in favor, 56 to 39 percent.
• Green New Deal — According to Grist, nationally it enjoys 63% support.
• Legalizing marijuana — Fox News poll says Americans nationwide favor it by 63% to 34%.
• Gun Control — A Pew Research Center survey reports 60 percent favor tougher controls on guns.
• Assisted suicide — Gallup poll indicates 72% of citizens believe requested physician aided dying should be legal.
• Abortion — Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll says 60% favor it legal in all or most cases, while 36% want it illegal in most or all cases.
• Climate change — Pew: “About two-thirds of U.S. adults (67%) say the federal government is doing too little to reduce the effects of climate change, and similar shares say the same about government efforts to protect air (67%) and water quality (68%).”
• Black Lives Matter — A Quinnipiac University poll found “67% of registered voters supported the protests as a response to “the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.”
• Coronavirus — Five Thirty Eight polling shows 64.8% of Americans are either very or somewhat concerned about the virus.
• COVID-19 response — Brookings Institute: “The American people are backing an increasingly robust response to the COVID-19 epidemic, even when it limits their customary liberties, they expect this restrictive regime to continue for at least another few months, and they seem prepared to tolerate it.”
• The economy — Brookings Institute showed Republicans and conservatives are united in suggesting the free market or keeping things just the way they are provide the best answers to economic crisis while Democrats and leftists are split and have only 41% support.
• Gov. Whitmer’s directives — The Detroit Free Press reported, “Michigan voters overall overwhelmingly agreed — by a margin of 69% to 22% — that protests at the state Capitol against Whitmer’s stay-at-home orderssent a wrong message.” Virtually all polls have indicated her aggressive response to the pandemic has been appropriate.

So in 11 of the 12 polls I surveyed, the state legislatures and congress are not in step with their constituents, which leads me once again to reassert that our political system has deteriorated so badly that it is neither a democracy, nor a republic. Journalist Bill Moyers refers to it as “legalized bribery.”

To paraphrase former President Jimmy Carter, the United States no long is a functioning democracy, it is an oligarchy, or the rule by a small cadre of rich people for their own enrichment.

Their response in private probably is, “Oh yeah? Whattaya gonna do about it?”