I didn't want to hi-jack the Crypto thread so I'll start the discussuion here. Although you get to vote for the candidate of your choice, the candidate is chosen by the elite. (The guys with the gold) Democracy as we know it is bought and paid for. To get elected you have to campaign. To campaign you need money. The guys with the money decide who gets to be nominated. The guy who is nominated promises to give you stuff for free that he pays for with your money. When a decision has to be made, who do you think the guy you elected will listen to, the guy who elected him of the guy who financed him? Not saying the democracy isn't the best system, only saying that if your vote really made a differece, they would probably find a way to make it illegal.
A couple concerns with your assessment. 1. You're using the US exclusively for your example while there are a variety of democracies around the world in which most of their population feels fairly well represented with the political alternatives offered and the evolution of their nation. 2. Your viewpoint is so dark that your solution seems to only imply violence, revolutionary or dictatorial. I don't deny America is sick, but I believe it's because its foundation has too rarely been challenged to fit with the times, to represent the evolutionary will of the people. I think your description of the US political system shows a weak government manipulated by special interests and I would suggest that it is not a flaw but a feature of the system. America's interests has always been its corporate interests, the drivers of the economy have always controlled the political establishment.
1) You're right. All I know is North American politics. 2) I don't have a solution. I wish I did. Like the market the government seems to be controlled by fear and greed and complacency.
I don't have a solution either, just pointing to specificities of the US system that are its strength in times of growth and weakness when things don't look well.
In New Mexico election fraud is mandatory. WallStreet and Obama pandered to China's need for vengeance. Our oligarchs are the lowest of the low.