请高手们帮忙看看这一句话怎么理解，大全里第二篇的第二段第一句

“Reform” in America has been sterile because it can imagine no change except through the extension of this metaphor of a race, wider inclusion of competitors, “a piece of the action,” as it were, for the disenfranchised.

这个是阅读大全里第二篇的第二段第一句。后面的几个重句跟前面怎么连起来的，是什么关系，谢谢！