Is America Controlled by a Small but Powerful Political Elite?

The United States was created to counter the consolidation of power within a limited sphere of people. The founding fathers recognized the dangers inherent in fashioning a system of government in which too few people had too much power. The result distributed power evenly across the matrix of governance: those who would create the laws, those who would interpret the laws and those who would execute the laws. The checks and balances system-along with the (eventual) right of all legal citizens to elect their leaders-is supposed to guarantee a pluralistic society in which no small elite can gain access to great power. But has theory translated into practice?

Those who support the idea that America remains a pluralistic society in which the majority of the voting populace determine the direction of American society have at least one very convincing argument in their favor. If America truly were in the hands of an elite group of puppetmasters working behind the scenes to determine the official policies of America, then how to explain the fact that-unlike in other democracies to which the idea of a controlling elite can be effectively argued such as Mexico-the balance of power in America has constantly shifted back and forth between whichever political parties have been dominant at the time? If a ruling elite were so powerful that they could control the very fabric of American government, then surely the most recent election would not have resulted in a full-scale rebalancing of the power structure?