Trump (and the presidency in general) is used as a distraction. Its also probably the only legitimate election that happens - its the only one that the candidat

Trump (and the presidency in general) is used as a distraction. Its also probably the only legitimate election that happens - its the only one that the candidates are thoroughly scrutinized by the voters and whose platforms, personalities, etc are laid bare in a way most people actually doing the voting are able to comprehend. Senators and governors might be in a very distant second and third place for legitimate scrutiny by the electorate, house representatives in fourth, maybe in some very rare circumstances someone pays attention to state house or senate races, and maybe you care about your mayor once every other decade. Every other race is simply pay to win. You pay the most, get the most ads in front of constituents faces, and get yourself political power for as long as you can afford to keep it. The voting public does not have the patience, time, or willpower to scrutinize a dozen+ races per election cycle in a way paramount to preserving the institutional integrity of the government. Its why people are always so pessimistic about government solving problems - they really aren't practically electing the people writing the laws or testing their legitimacy. You vote for judges on paper, but in aggregate the elected judge is almost always the one with the most donors. Its all intentional and structural, of course. It helps preserves the two party duopoly and lowers the cost of buying legislation for private interests. If voters only had one person to elect whose job it then was to do all the other appointments and elections they would otherwise do, but whom the electorate scrutinizes as much as the president and whose conduct is all over their personal media feeds every day, we might actually have something reminiscent of the will of the people showing up in government again.