The American political process has been systematically perverted by the oligarchs since the Powell memo in the mid '70s, and both major parties have been complicit. The shift toward fascist rule by corporations could not have happened without Democrats abandoning their voter base in labor.
Since then, we have only been offered lesser evil choices, none of which have stopped the rightward shift of our culture through false economics that created scapegoats for the decline of the working middle class. Democrats, as the opposition party that should have protected New Deal institutions and promoted their expansion, have acted as the ratchet that prevents any such leftward progressive shift.
Their feckless management of the economy when in power and their inept answers to extremist rhetoric from the right serve to enable the mass illusion of the oligarch donor class being the "source" of any hope for prosperity for working-class Americans. If shoveling public money to the oligarchs and their corporations were the answer to our economic woes our economy would be in great shape.
However, if you believe, as most Americans do, that economic success can only be reached via capitalism and that the government is only a "cost" to be minimized, then it is imperative that the oligarchs remain sufficiently wealthy to fund that government and any programs it enacts for the middle class and poor. The first thing one hears when discussing such beneficial programs is "How are you going to pay for it?". Just asking that question should disqualify any representative from holding office at the federal level, but the thought behind it is rampant at all levels of our federal government.
This error in thinking, conflating the budget process and goals of the currency-issuer with currency "users' (any entity that isn't able to create currency without also creating debt the private sector is responsible for), is what enables most of the problems, both economic and social, that we face as a nation. Until we can wrestle the terms of debate away from the oligarchy and its political minions in Congress from both neoliberal parties, we will not be able to create the institutions that safeguard the people from predation.
Our federal government can afford anything that is available for sale, including our labor, even without a dime of revenue. We should be demanding things like single-payer healthcare and a dignified retirement, not funding them ourselves with private bank debt. We should also demand a universal job guarantee that pays a livable wage with benefits that doesn't make it possible to use monetary policy to blackmail us into accepting whatever terms the oligarchs offer out of desperation.
