It's more that a critical mass of Americans have been duped into believing such things come with evil strings attached. Money buys voters, because the more eye

It's more that a critical mass of Americans have been duped into believing such things come with evil strings attached. Money buys voters, because the more eyeballs you put in front of overly emotional arguments which appeal to the mythologies people were raised with (along with their egos) - all very easy to construct - the more likely you are to win. The ability to influence is disproportionately granted to those who already have wealth & power, regardless of their actual agendas. By nearly any measure, we are in a new Gilded Age at least as bad as the first one, only with way more people and way more sophisticated tools of manipulation. Yet almost anything we try to do to reduce the wealth gap is easily batted down by armies of idealogues who often don't even realize their opinions have been bought. There is no easy answer to this I can see, it may take a massive crisis and unthinkable loss of life (history doesn't repeat but it rhymes) before we're able to adjust course... which will also be temporary. The battle for anything resembling equality will never end for this species as we know it.