We waited until the ultra-wealthy figured out how to weaponize their power against us. It may be too late. But we have to reduce the wealth gap as a priority step to fixing democracy.
It doesn't happen because the elected government doesn't want to. In the USSR, it would have happened, but such politics didn't work well in the end. The current system that allows billionaires is not perfect, but unless shown otherwise, it is the least bad.
Some of us wouldn't mind at least going back to before (so called) Citizens United.
You're skipping over the point of why they don't want to seize the billionaire his assets: because a billionaire is a valuable ally to a politician seeking to stay in power. In fact, a billionaire is more valuable to a politician than his actual constituents. And that's how we get oligarchs.
We have billionaires but not because we desperately try to lure such piece of scheize like thiel, they come or don't leave because they want all it offers and know when to shut up and respect rules just like effin' everybody else. And they are well taxed btw, wealth tax is here, pretty real albeit not crushing and not something introduced recently.
Things can be done, well within framework of typical western democracy, people just need to get down from their hyped egos that 'their way' is the best way bar none. Emotional discussions vs rational ones.
Billionaires go radically apoplectic and turn into propagandistic freaks when the US government is simply not reducing their taxes fast enough. I actually think most people don't want this massive wealth gap, but we're reaching the point where it's impossible for the will of the people to find expression in our government, especially now that the billionaires are literally running the joint.