Only some people fall into the “both sides” trap and start thinking that cynicism is a virtue. It’s unfortunate, as this behavior encourages the very outcome to which you object. It’s much easier to take advantage of people who have given up.
It's not that the people have given up. There are small changes that seem to be happening, like rank choice voting, and calls for many other things, like trading restrictions on members of Congress. But really, it's easy to take advantage of people when the People have increasingly less power.
