You'd have to be deliberately ignorant to think there hasn't been persistent, pervasive, and systematic subversion of democratic ideals, values, and principles. It's insidious, so most people don't catch it, and anyone who calls it out is painted as a radical, but it's everywhere and it's as old as society itself.

You literally couldn't list all the fucked up ways the ruling class maintains its grip. Some of them have nice concise names that don't need much explanation: Legal gerrymandering, in a first past the post voting system, with two parties. Some of the names are even quite new to public knowledge: Political Advertising, in a Money as Speech society, with Dark Money coming from super-PACs and shell-companies, that lobby both through campaign donations and post-political careers.

But the vast majority of the time they don't have pretty little names. Did you know in most places if you want to vote for anyone who's not registered on the ballot your vote won't even be counted? Did you know third parties need at least 5% of the vote to get partial federal funding and that mathematically that means your vote (if it counts at all) counts about ten times more just by voting for one of them (Yeah, lesser of two evils my ass)? If you've ever wrote to a politician you probably know they have automated response algorithms and people trained in distraction tactics for any letter you may write. Let's not forget Protest Suppression Tactics ranging from police brutality, to the need for permits, to accusations of disturbing the peace, oh and if anyone in your protest becomes violent (be them random anarchist or the CIA) you're expected to disband or as far as public opinion is concerned you're standing with thugs. And I don't even know how to point out the fact that 90% of what most politicians talk about the people don't actually give a fuck about.

Unsecured Electronic Voting that amounts to low key Ballot Stuffing barely even scratches the surface on how broken America is right now and has been for a while.