Essay Plan: Evaluate the view that Pressure Groups are more representative than Political Parties

PGs are more representative than political parties in US



Descriptively representative

 Most diverse Congress in history

o 56 AA in House
o 52 Hispanics
o 21 Asians
o 118th = 43% House Democrats are female


 AARP = 38 million elderly members
 Minority pressure groups
 BLM
 The Israel Lobby
 National Congress of American Indians




Ideologically representative
 NRA = 5.5 million members
 Abortion – National Right to Life Committee
 The Christian Coalition
 NAACP (National Association Advancement Coloured People)
 ACLU

 Obama’s Democrats represented low-earners with American Recovery Act 2009 - $787bn
 Biden with American Rescue Plan - $1.9tr
 PPACA – 20 million




Negative partisanship
 Trump’s ‘crooked Hillary’
 Demonisation of Trump and Sanders
 Trump’s representation of election-deniers
 Trump = 81% Conservative voters
 Clinton – 84% liberal voters

 Conservative effort of PGs on Susan Collins + Lisa Murkowski to confirm Kavanaugh
 Liberal PGs on Robert Bork blocking