Our leaders serve the people making noise at the bargaining table. We the people have the most power. We just leave after the first victory. We don’t become educated voters and choose to instead focus on exciting narratives. Elite interests try to affect change and so focus on reality. We the people seem to be after catharsis and so focus on symbolic victories.
But what can you expect from people who constantly tell themselves they have no power? No agency? They don’t conceptualize themselves as being able to affect change and it colors everything they do.