I'm pretty sure the solution is to stop focusing on the final election, and focus more on the primaries. If the winners of the primaries are really the best candidate from each party, then the people win no matter which party wins the election. But that's not what happens at all.
I wonder... I've read that Congresspeople spend the bulk of their time flying around begging for money from wealthy donors. Their influence within the party hierarchy, what Senate committees Senators are selected for, etc. are all basically functions of how effective they are at fundraising. I think if you don't address campaign finance, it doesn't matter in the end how you elect the people. The system will force them into behaving like they all currently do, or consign them to a position of diminished influence so that they can't counter the people who do sell out.
That only works if you assume that the reign of financial elites can be ended by having the right guy in office. I don't see any evidence for that assumption. Logically, I'm not sure that there are individual solutions to this deeply ingrained systemic problem.
Right. I don't disagree about your point concerning democracy vs visibility. But again, say these really great guys, the best each party has to offer, are elected in the primaries. One of them then is voted or votemachined into office. Then what? Who cares about who is shuffling around some pieces. The rules, the boundaries of reasonable discourse are still going to be dictated by "financial realities". There will be no change as long as this way of interpreting reality and its possibilities is in place. At levels of real wealth, the game was decided long ago.
Not doing anything is an action just as well. You ask then what. I ask then what without? I don't mean this as a trap, it's a pretty binary proposition so the question isn't whether to take a third option but whether either has advantages. That aside I don't believe that any complex problem ever comes down to a single solution. It might seem like it. Revolutions, strong personalities, etc. popular history is in love with the single mover trope, whether it's an event or a person. I however see those as results of gradual buildups. Just look at the right-shift in US politics. Each succesive genration of politicians was just a little bit more conservative. And now a democratic president is uncomfortably close to Nixon in more than a single area. I believe a similar shift away from "financial realities" is possible as well. It's not a satisfing answer but it's how, as far as I can tell, any progress is ever made. Hopefully in 50 years we can have a "defining" event that it can all be atributed to too.
I agree on all of that. Which is why I don't advocate taking no action. I'm a member of a political party, precisely because I agree that something is better than nothing. At the same time, I suspect that there is little capacity for significant course correction left in the formally democratic process. Those shifts you speak of seem to have known only one direction for decades. I still hold some hope for change being introduced through peaceful activism.