Exactly. We get the govt we deserve. Increased scrutiny and participation makes things better, not worse.
If people want a gruber govt, they need not do much.
Back in the late 80's the right in Canada was in chaos. Incompetent leadership, few if any could tell the difference between them and the middle party [sound familiar?]...and the corrupt had easy sway.
Arose a funny little man with a squeaky voice and his idea of a Reform party. Technically they were "right wing" but embraced a whole new way of looking at funding social programs....enablements not entitlements etc.
We were laughed at. Preston Manning was dismissed because he had a squeaky voice and we were out of a scary and forgotten place on Canada's landscape....."the west" which until then was thought of an treated like a colony of Canada...here have the world's best wheat, cheap oil and the two of the hottest economies in ten and can we maybe, one day have representation based on population or something close to it...?
Ten years later, Preston Manning was the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition and was demanding change. He once said "all new reform goes through the same political process. First the establishment parties laugh at you, then they lie about you, then they steel your ideas". And he was right. As a result of his pounding and growing following, on reducing the deficit.
Manning and Reform were never government but reshaped the core of Canada. We have among the lowest deficit in the world, the most secure and envied central banking system, and a completely new structure, one I maintain is far more efficient as a direct result of Reform.
My experience at the local level was we started as five at a strip bar and decided what the hell......
In awhile we were 50, then 200 and we were picking a candidate and wouldn't you know, myself and the other four were dumped from the executive.....some people with more experience showed up. That's successful politicking. We never won this eat, but we scared a bad woman out of it...and overall we changed a lot.
The problem is in the US a third party immediately goes for the presidency...which has not worked. If they start grass roots, select a few seats they can win and run good candidates they will have a foothold. No revolution happened overnight