I have a tough time believing that the American people have been duped into electing big-spending politicians decade after decade, and that they couldn't elect small government types if they actually wanted to. The more likely conclusion is that they simply DON'T want to.
For example, Republicans are supposedly the party of small government. Yet why don't their representatives regularly campaign on spending cuts, and then actually try to cut spending? I think it's because they are well aware that the issue is a political loser.
I'm guessing you'd find overwhelming support for social security, medicare, medicaid, education, defense, unemployment insurance, and just about any other major expenditure. And people would bristle at any attempt to cut them back. That's not to say that we shouldn't reform them to get the costs under control (in fact, it's absolutely imperative that we do so for Medicare/Medicaid), but there is going to be a lot of pushback against spending cuts...much moreso than there is for tax increases.
Fair enough, but it's been fairly consistent in that 18-24% range for the last forty years or so. If that's where the political equilibrium lies, it's much more plausible to increase taxes to that level than to try to change the government spending preferences of the American people.