-in order to see just a piece of the big picture here, first, foremost and without a doubt, remove yourself from any preconceived notions of political reality. Don't bring prejudices to the problem table. Approach this-to use a term in geekdom- by "thinking out of the box".
Go back in history decades. Start looking then, and look as someone who is not an american, make believe you are from someplace else, then LOOK at what's been going on for a long time, give it a critical eye.
We have two political parties, apparently carved in stone, but not legally, it just is. they go way, way, way our of their way to make sure that no other parties get much press, or that election rules and running are easy, and etc. the media is controlled, never forget that. The "media" is owned by a dozen people. These people are buddies with the very top levels in the D's and r's, plus with the international money men-it's all a big club.
No matter which party is "in power" in congress or the executive branch, we have seen the step by step advancing towards a truly global fascist state, with the US as being the apparent "leader". Look at all the bogus laws passed, the gradual rise of the governmental bureaucracy, the sheer numbers involved. Look at the treaties, the selling out of the workplace, at all the undeclared wars, the 'executive orders" used to run extremely important 'things" which are suposed to be done by "congress".
Flash forward, another war, another bogeyman, saddam insane. Back to being some foreigner looking at the situation. The nation fighting him has "elected' the previous head of their secret police. This head has provable ties to the man he is apparently fighting, business and economic ties. In fact, one of his own ambassadors gave this bogeyman the greenlight to go ahead and recapture what used to be a province of his own country, just like-say-if mexico had grabbed texas, and now the us was going back in to take texas back-this guy got the go-ahead, so he did it, only to have been double crossed after the fact of the invasion to retake the province back, by the big countries new leader, the ex-secret police chief. the big countries leader/secret police chief was starting to look bad in his own country, he needed a diversion-fast.
Flash forward again, the next 'elected leader", from the other half of the true one-party in power constantly, has proven ties and is good buddies with the last leader, the secret police head. This new leader continiues going around the world, invading here and there. Why even one time when a particularly juicy sex scandal was breaking, he decides to start another war, shoots off a zillion bucks worth of cruise missiles, again, real coincidentally. Lots of other things happen to, a church full of women and chikldren mostly is burnt to the ground, killing all of them. Lots of weird strange things happen, anyone can see he is a 'dictator". All his subordinates act like little dictators, too.
Flash forward again-the ex "civilian" leader and ex secret police head now has his two sons in power as well, dictators of two provinces. One "runs for the leadership position" and wins.
Starting to sorta make sense now? It's a good cop/bad cop scam routing being run, run by skilled actors and international power brokers and money men. They are all GREAT at rousing the rabbles-one side or the other-to support them, always blaming the other guy for what goes wrong. Same scam been running for decades and decades, but-SURPRISE! Nothing changes really, except for the worse. Minor differences in rhetoric, but where the rubber meets the road-it's always the same ole same ole. They ALL make big money and stay in complete power running the scam. There is ZERO profit in it for any of them in stopping the scam, none. One hand washes the other.
The coverups continue because they are all in on it, it's worth trillions and trillions of dollars and life and death POWER over millions of people. Pure megalomania, institutionalised, cheered on, paid for, VOTED for. Except at the excrutiatingly high levels, even their true believer supporters mostly can't see it, and really don't want to see it, because they really want honest government, and desparately want the system to work, so they develop blinders. It's just human nature, you really don't want to believe you are supporting a lie, or profiting from a lie, so it goes on. The liars have everything to gain from maintaining all the lies, that's the nature of liars, and if they are megalomaniacs as well....you get the picture.
Sure they have some squabbles with each other, but think of them as wolves fighting over the herd. They STOP fighting each other if the herd looks like they have noticed that there really aren't that many wolves, so they pick a few out and sacrifice them, to get the herds all squared away again, back to grazing, in either this wolfs pasture or that wolfs pasture, as long as they know their place, keep grazing, and never see the true nature of the wolves, or how few wolves there really are.
Hope this wasn't too analogous, but it's how I think on these matters. We have predators "ruling" us, they most definetly do NOT lead, they rule. They are FIRST allied to each other as being wolves, you and I they consider part of the herd. The wolves may fight each other occassionally, but never stop being fellow wolves with each other. Never. Carved in stone.
I too think this is how it is.
It's an everyday fact that there are people who will literally kill you for the lousy 50 bucks you might have in your pocket, so why wouldn't other people do whatever they have to do to maintain control of enormous power and money?
Not pleasant to consider, but nevertheless true.
I think the only chance of ever turning this around is by breaking up the consolidated control of the media outlets. Get some independent truth out to the average citizen.
Whenever that does happen, the response is always immediate.
But that is number one, two and three; get the microphone back.