>don't address claims of the original study They address several things, like the low R-squared value (0.074) or the fact that interest groups win against both

>don't address claims of the original study They address several things, like the low R-squared value (0.074) or the fact that interest groups win against both the rich and the middle class at roughly the same rate if you use their own data sets. >They cite academic work that divides the country into four groups: the middle class, the rich, business interests and non-business interests. (This is not a covering set, which is already a red flag.) These groups are literally from the Gilens study, not the rebuttal. If you view this as discrediting the rebuttals then you should view it as discrediting the original paper as well. >they point out the rich are more supportive of public campaign financing than the middle class. This is a second red flag: It is unlikely that people that use their money to influence legislative outcomes are more supportive of banning the practice than the general population. This policy preference comes from the surveys used by the original Gilens survey, so if you view this as discrediting the rebuttals then you should view it as discrediting the original paper as well. >The original study claimed that (1) lobbyists and oligarchs are basically writing legislation and deciding who gets elected, and (2) there is no correlation between popular opinion and actions of congress. You can't rebut that by claiming that the 90-99% usually agree with the 50-90%, and congress doesn't really seem to favor one of those groups' opinions over the other. The original paper explicitly claimed that >ordinary citizens get what they want from government only when they happen to agree with elites or interest groups that are really calling the shots So it makes plenty of sense to exclude those instances where the two groups agreed if you're trying to determine how influential their policy preferences actually are.