Imagine the money not spent on more pressing issues we face these days: health problems, poverty and the destruction of nature earth, just to name a few.
Why do we, as a society, tolerate this?
In Western democracies [I really want to put quotes around both those words] do we have a choice?
In the UK we get to vote but it's for one of 2 or 3 sets of policies for the next 5 years, at no point do I recall any main party saying they were going to do something about NSA/GCHQ incursions in to UK life; I imagine USA have us over a barrel even if there were political will amongst the elite to change the spying on ordinary subjects [of the Crown].
Of course that would never happen as nobody who actually had any intention to do such a thing would ever get elected as PM - look at the complete lambasting that Jeremy Corbyn has been getting, including murmurings that the Army would mutiny if he got into power.
[NB I am not a Labour supporter and wouldn't vote for Corbyn but I do think that the way he has been treated recently is pretty appalling.]
Spending billions to make a whole country stop working and cast a vote is another one. Should we take all those billions and put them in more pressing issues in exchange for despotism?
Maybe our society tolerates it because it is the only way to play the game with the current rules.
* for some ambitious but obviously not literal definition of "all".