I think OP may have stopped one or more causal links short of the systemic issue. In general, politics is vulnerable to actors who work in bad faith. You can b

I think OP may have stopped one or more causal links short of the systemic issue. In general, politics is vulnerable to actors who work in bad faith. You can blame the current power-hungry narcissistic wealthy sociopaths who are doing what power-hungry narcissistic wealthy sociopaths can be expected to do, or you can accept that there will always be people who fit that description and try to fix the incentives and checks that they're responding to.