Ultimately the rulers of USA are decided by the people. You might have a lot of trickery and corruption behind the scenes, but every politician still needs to g

Ultimately the rulers of USA are decided by the people. You might have a lot of trickery and corruption behind the scenes, but every politician still needs to get votes from actual workers so they can't be too alienated. This isn't optimal, but it works well in theory and is fairly robust since if the system gets too corrupt people will vote in an unsanctioned candidate.