The majority of citizens in a democracy are fooled into thinking they have any influence in their government's decisions:

"Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism."

http://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fil...