Interest Groups In American Politics

Interest groups are the decisive factors in an election, and are prominent at every level of American politics swaying and influencing voters. They use tactics and send out messages that seem to be for the voters, when actually it’s the contrary. Interest groups seek to influence political processes in ways that benefit their members. In doing so, however, they may not act in the overall public interest. Still while acting for their own self improvement these interests groups continue to be wildly popular with the largest one in the United States being AARP, (American Association of Retired Persons), having over 37 million members . These interest groups use many techniques, and form many different networks to achieve their goals, with only …show more content…
These networks are the ways in which, after the candidate gets elected, the interest groups get their policies into action. Interest groups give money to congress, along with a positive feedback regarding the bureaucracy. Congress then passes laws and initiatives regarding the policies and goals of the interest group, while at the same time expanding the powers and the budgets of the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy now with their superior powers either maintains or decrease regulations thereby keeping the interest groups pleased and keeping congress at bay. An example of such a network would be the American Association of Retired People (AARP), working alongside of the Social Security Administration and the House Subcommittee on Aging to set a government strategy for Social Security in America . Many people believe Iron Triangles such as these to be the real government in the United States, because without these networks of organizations working together communicating the issues, nothing truly would ever get done to fix the problems in America, even if the problems being fixed only benefit members of the triangle. One other way interest groups solve problems to benefit themselves is through amicus curiae briefs. An amicus brief is a document that is filed in a court by someone who is not directly related to the case under consideration …show more content…
With there now being a twenty four hour news cycle, news outlets have to always find something to broadcast to their viewers, and one of the chiefly popular topics is that of politics. People enjoy hearing about their government, and rightfully so because it has an effect on nearly every aspect of American life and what they hear isn’t always positive. The media is keen on portraying lobbying in a negative fashion, as the media is on portraying basically everything, but especially lobbying. Lobbying on the surface seems to appear acceptable, people talking to other people convincing them of ideas, but the bulk of the time it isn’t that simple. Sure lobbyists talk with congressmen and women about ideas, but they also employ some of the things mentioned earlier such as bribery, and that is what the media latches onto. It’s extraordinarily easy to depict lobbyists as the creators of corruption in politics, and maybe they are, they’re just swinging their money around and whoever gives the most is the one that gets the job done, kind of how in the late 18 and early 19 hundreds with party bosses and political machines. The media also magnifies every decision the interest groups may make and calls public attention to any action, ruling, or policy that could be unfavorable to the general public . Nothing goes unnoticed in today’s news cycle, or if by some miracle it does, one of the millions of at home news