>>513997059
>why in the fuck is it like this?
It's simply an inevitable consequence of the reality of class conflict and the unique weaknesses of the American system of government. There's no one reason, but all the reasons are also all essentially the same thing.
For example, the US senate gives disproportionate representation to rural interests because every state gets 2 seats, so California (60,000,000 people) has the same number of votes as Wyoming (500,000 people). This is a structural feature that already pushes US legislation in a non-democratic direction.
Then there are non-structural factors, like the filibuster. In the US senate you can use 'the filibuster' to block legislation unless it has 2/3rds support. Because no party ever wins 2/3rds of the senate, what this means is that the people who lose the election can block the winners from passing any laws at all. So even if the vast majority of Americans want public healthcare, and they win 60% of the seats in parliament, they still cannot pass a law enabling it, which is obviously anti-democratic.
Additionally, the US bill of rights puts legislative power in the hands of unelected judges. If you pass a law for universal healthcare I can appeal that law to the Supreme Court and they can rule that it violates my right to privacy or whatever and strike it down. This is another anti-democratic feature.
Individually, you can make arguments for why all of these things are good and necessary and so on. But taken collectively they result in a system that is completely unresponsive to what voters want. In America you can win the election, control Congress, control the Senate, control the Presidency, and still be unable to pass a single law.
And that's the main reason in my opinion why voters in America don't get what they want.