As I've said many times, We vote once every 4 years for someone we hope won't murder our children in their beds, but billions of times every day for those who do.

Why?

Because it's convenient and cheap to support the mean Mean's system of competitive moral turpitude. We even allowed our politicians to force us to place bets on it when they allowed corporations to dump pensions into the stock market games instead of paying employees for loyalty. When we could have treated everyone equally (Medicare for all), our 'votes' for new drugs and expensive medical care gave power to lobbyists to force us all to support the Landscaping Subsidy and Advertising systems (insurance and drug corporations).

When it came time for an election, all advertisers ('news' outlets) gave free publicity to a fake anti-establishment bromance with childish 'right to abuse each other' competition mindset.

The Surveillance State is already here: it works for advertisers and hires academics. The demographic data traders realized that dead customers don't buy products, but they can watch TV and receive credit cards to keep subscriptions going.