Civics as it's designed to function, with checks and balances? Or a congress based on 100 year old apportionment & pointless census, a hyperwealthy hyperminori

Civics as it's designed to function, with checks and balances? Or a congress based on 100 year old apportionment & pointless census, a hyperwealthy hyperminority bribing congressmen left and right, then getting receipts for their bribes via Congress's famous lack of a secret ballot? Because one of those is a fantasy, and the other is the world we live in.