Politics itself and the structure of representative democracy within a Republic isn't the problem. When this country started only certain people could vote. They all owned land which meant they held a stake in the country. They were business owners. They read books. They were thinkers. The renter class holds no stake. Higher education, despite the warnings of Senator McCarthy, has been infiltrated by radical Marxists. The rest of the population is ignorant. People who have never read a provocative book in their life get to vote. People who pay no taxes get to vote. When the voting base is dominated by stupidity, greed, and short-sightedness, politics also becomes dominated by those things. We've been taught that giving every living, breathing soul in the country a vote has been progress, but has it really?