Who actually holds power in America? People talk a lot about the president, but until Trump presidents were actually quite limited in power. Congress, sure, then a lot of people will kind of get lost.
I figure there are about 14,000 people who, together as a class, hold pretty much all of the power and make most of the decisions in this country. Let's talk about who really calls the shots in USA, starting from the top.
Before Trump they were the 2 most powerful people on Earth; now they're virtual kings of a hemisphere.
Besides actually making the laws, these guys also have a lot of power that accumulates to the office. For example, my elected representative's office was once able to call a stubborn unemployment agency and make things happen for me. Also, most congresspeople were already rich and/or powerful before getting to congress; that's how they got there.
Have the power to make society-wide changes such as allowing or banning things like abortion or interracial marriage.
These are the people who make actual decisions that affect actual people: whether you get to keep your house after bankruptcy; whether those cops beating you was part of their job or gets you a million-dollar payout; if someone goes to prison or not.
Governors have all the power of the president, just in their state.
Same as the governors.
This is where the rubber meets the road. These are the people who run the jails, visit you at work to give you legal papers, keep the riffraff out and/or harass drifters, depending on your point of view.
Laws don't apply to the super-rich. They can do whatever they want. That's power, and it belongs on this list.
CEOs hold a lot of power over their employees obviously, and also over things like:
I just arbitrarily chose to include the 100 CEOs of the 100 biggest corporations in this list. Should it be 500? Maybe!
Mayors of the 10 biggest cities have a lot of control over their municipalities and often far-flung regions around it. 10 chosen arbitrarily. Should it be 20? Maybe!
This brings us to 13,932 people.
Roughly 14k people who collectively comprise the decision-making aristocracy in America.