How do the american people make this a reality? What steps can be taken to motivate our political leaders to support such a change?
As of right now, it seems like political suicide for anyone to politically support such a thing, as they would surely be painted as a terrorist sympathizer or some such.
They don't want to make it a reality. You want to make it a reality, I want to make it a reality, but the majority of your friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens don't.
As of right now, it seems like political suicide for anyone to politically support such a thing
See? Answered your own question. If the majority of Americans felt as you do, it wouldn't be political suicide.
Right now the wife and I are in the market for a new toddler-hauler. I want to buy two-years used, and ideally American, but I cannot get over the fact that only a handful of recent models, none American, get a "good" rating in the new IIHS small-offset crash tests. I know that a Ford made in 2015 is perfectly safe, but I'm going to spend a bunch more money on a new 2016 Honda because I'm irrational.
Eventually someone who wants to be elected will grab on to the idea and make it a tenet of their platform.
This is how anything ends in government that can't be proven (by proven I mean with loss of lives or some other very serious consequence, not simply proven ineffective) to be more harm than good.