I'm getting increasingly :doomer over how significantly different their little mind palace is from reality. It's like, they live in a game with well defined rules and ignore every example where the rules don't apply, then act smug over the rules, like everything is figured out.

The classic response is so demeaning. Like no, that is obviously not helping us, anyone we can vote for is actively paid off by the orgs and people we're trying to defend ourselves against. The only way to get in a position where someone can even vote for you is by being completely bought out. The democracy will be undermined by millions of dollars to the opposing candidate every time you step out of the pre-approved script, and even if the rare good officials win out, they've just had all their mental effort sapped away for months to defend against them.