If someone in the coming years ran on taking down regulatory capture and returning that as social safety net funding, public goods, and lower taxes, and had the chops to actually deliver, they'd do well.
Though best to start local government first, obviously.
We're reaching breaking points in so many places...
The problem isn’t that such candidates would never accomplish anything let alone get elected due to the insurmountable amount of resistance from so many incumbents with a vested interest in that not happening, ever.
Most people don’t even know what regulatory capture really means. There’s no “brand” to rally around and I don’t know how you’d go about building one.
And without the concept spread through the population, where would you find the grass roots support you’d need for resisting the avalanche of interest-group pushback?
“Draining the swamp” or “revolving door” were sorta in the neighborhood, but still ineffective and counterproductive.
DOGE tried, and despite it’s best efforts still couldn’t do more than make a dent
“They’d do well.” That is not the lesson I’ve taken from the past 15 years of politics in the US and abroad.
Political candidates actually interested in taking on the very difficult and nuanced task of governing are routinely drubbed by edge lord culture warriors or candidates that simply promise the world without any regard to annoying facts like existing laws, budget deficits, or basic tenets of economics.
I definitely agree there is probably less disfunction and greater chance for reform at the local level.