The American system was structured as a deliberate reform of the government of the past, the government of high social stratification, with power concentrated in a central figure or group. The American system was intended to disperse power more widely and to provide for the means to assure that power would not become concentrated in any one person or office or even in any one branch of government. The system elevated the average citizen to a new position of power, power exercised through the right to vote. The system from the beginning promised not only change and reform but a new equality and has been portrayed as removing power from the elite and giving it to the public at large. However, the reality does not match the ideal as embodied in the Constitution and in the government it created and supports, and power still remains largely in the hands of certain elites. It is this fact that has caused more agitation from reform in recent years as people consider how to alter the system to make it live up to its promise. Yet the system as it stands today is not elitist but a hyperpluralist system in which certain groups dominate the process, exert more power than other groups, and get what they want.
The system has changed over the history of this country, as should be expected given the dynamic nature of that system, the flexibility of the Constitution that governs it, and the tendency for democratic debate to center on the question of what democracy itself means as William E. Hudson notes:
Democratic politics has been a new experience for humankind; it is understandable that conceptions of it remain in formation. There is obviously no single, authoritative blueprint for how democracy can be achieved. Instead, democratic politics involves a constant discussion among citizens about how best to organize their political life (Hudson 25).
That organization has developed in the direction of hyperpluralism from an earlier plur...