because we did once, and so the wealthy and powerful spent ludicrous amounts of money taking over the country to ensure it never, ever happens again.

Because we’re an Oligarchy and liberal ideals are the last thing they want to encourage.

They did, somewhat, back in the early 20th century. There was a massive labor movement, direct engagement into political life by a whole lot of ordinary people, and a big effort to turn the awesome power of the central government into working to address ordinary (white) people’s problems.

It’s part of what made it into a superpower by the 1950s. Before that it was just farms and racism. Then we got lazy, and let the assholes take over as the decades rolled by. But we can recover again, it just takes a ton of work.

Manifest destiny.