This doesn't count the tens of millions of Americans who work for the government or hold a private-sector job that depends on the regulatory state, such as the legions of consultants and billing clerks whose livelihood depends on ObamaCare. 

Nor does it count the tens of millions of Americans who benefit from crony capitalism and crony unionism—that is, those who use political clout to insulate themselves from market forces and competition, through public subsidies, restrictive tariffs, or labor laws. 

An example is the National Education Association and its 3.3 million members.  It is one of the most powerful special interests at the local and federal levels, and is the primary reason public education will never be fixed.  Another example on a lesser scale is the National Football League, a subject that I will return to later.

Regardless of their party affiliation and professed disgust with Congress, government-dependent Americans aren't about to vote to have their government rice bowl taken away. 

A minority of Americans live and work outside of government sinecure, patronage, mercantilism, and corporatism.  This remnant operates in what is left of a free market.  They are a remnant within a remnant.  You seldom hear about them in the media, because the media tend to focus on those with political clout, even to the point of quoting press releases from the politically connected. 

A case in point is landscapers in my hometown of metro Phoenix.  Mostly of Mexican heritage, tens of thousands of them work in one of the largest industries in the Valley of the Sun, most as independent contractors.  Yet the local media don't cover landscaping as an industry, and thus don't bemoan the industry's low income or hyperventilate about the industry's dangerous working conditions.  But the media cover ad nausea the politically powerful, especially with those with high job security, good pay, and rich benefits and pensions, such as firefighters, police officers, and public school teachers.

All of this is an example of what public-choice economists call the problem of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. In simple terms, this means that special interests that benefit from government programs are well-organized and funded (and influential with the media), while those who pay for the programs are the opposite.  A special interest that receives $330 million in government payola will fight very hard to keep the loot coming.  But since this comes to only one dollar per American citizen, the typical person will not expend the immense amount of time and money it would take to keep his dollar from being stolen by just this one special interest out of thousands of special interests.    

This is the top reason for America's decline, for the dysfunction in Congress, and for the powerlessness of the average citizen.  Politicians know this.

The average citizen can't overcome the political power of teacher unions, or the political power of corn growers and ethanol producers, or the political power of Big Medicine and Big Pharma.  But the average citizen can overcome the political power of Big Football. 

"Big Football" is shorthand for the National Football League and its team owners.  Not only is Big Football exempt from certain restraint of trade laws, but most NFL teams play in taxpayer-subsidized stadiums.  In other words, non-fans are forced to subsidize fans.

Citizens who profess to believe in free competition, small government, and the little guy can easily stick to their principles when it comes to Big Football.  They can simply stop watching football until the system corrects itself and stops taking other people's money through government force instead of a free market.

Reforming Big Football wouldn't require organizing, lobbying, spending, or the election of sympathetic politicians.  Nor would it require a poor person to give up food stamps, an elderly person to give up Medicare, or a rich regulatory consultant to give up his livelihood.  It would just require hitting a button on a TV remote.

Are football fans principled enough to take this relatively painless and easy step to send a message to the elites and plutocrats who run the country, or are they full of bullcrap about their desire to save the country and just as selfish and unethical as everyone else?