You’ve hit the nail on the head at least five times!!!
If you really get down to it, and we Americans mostly don’t, apart from a handful democrats, very few have risen from grass roots. As I recall, Pete is one.
If more Americans begin to think like you, a paradigm shift would come about rapidly in the murky realm of horse-trading politicians.
We are too corrupted by capitalism, which was not a dirty word till we turned it into crapitalism!!!
Nevertheless, wherever I look, it’s the same story which plays itself out, but at different levels— a little more tainted, a little less corrupted.
Look at Pakistan. 80 percent is devastated, swallowed by monsoons and melting glaciers. Punjab is/was the bread basket of Pakistan. Crops and farm animals swept away. If impoverished, exploited farmers can get any poorer, now thatched huts and bare bones life are also gone. Babies are still being pulled out of mud. Makes me so angry.

Do politicians care?? Of course not!
Aid is flowing in at a generous rate. Black marketeers, a front for ministers, feudals and warlords, are unashamedly selling donations of food, blankets and tents ! A ‘committee’ of local govt has approved purchase of 40 more luxury SUVs, an addition to already bloated garages. Such low life! Unbelievable.

Things have come to a sad pass— I could never imagine Sweden falling into clutches of neo-Nazis. Resurgence of fascism is very scary, in every European country. Practically. Planet has been consumed by greed of kleptocrats. Shudder.