Sure, you're up against "the purpose of a system is what it does". I'm sure many mainstream politicians actually earnestly care about individual liberty and reigning in corpos - it helps them sell themselves to the public. But the net effect is that when the dollars come calling, enough set aside those ideals to make the corpo agenda happen.

That’s a false equivalence. Companies can pay people to agitate for them full-time. Then they can pay the politicians, albeit indirectly. Finally the public have the privilege of using their free time to agitate against the politicians. Which just starts out as unorganized disruptions, “people were mildly inconvenienced on their way to work today”.

That versus cash.

I agree that's what the people have wanted to say and that they believe it is what they have said, but they get taken in by simplistic populist messages that transmute their frustration into support for the next corpo con long into when the results have become apparent. But for 2024 the usual excuses of "he reneged", "stick with the incumbent", or "less bad option" don't even work - it's a clear case of people putting their foot on the gas with a known quantity, but thinking it must be a good thing because those other people are really upset about it.