Regarding your worries...
1) there is an interesting political theory, that all governments are oligopolies. At some level, no leader stands alone, and no government is truly democratic. In a democracy or what passes as one, the group that best responds to the needs of "the citizenry" exercises control over the government. So, democracy is just a way of picking which oligopoly will rule.
2) I don't agree we have fewer checks and balances. It is hard to say there were any checks in place during Biden's first two years before he lost control of the House. The government was clearly weaponized and there was little Republicans could do about it. Now the situation is reversed, but unless the Republicans use their power to do what people want, they will lose the House in 2026.
Democrats could help themselves if they abandon their recent trend towards elitism (as one example: Climate Change is a "high class" problem to someone trying to feed his family and heat his home. So. instead of driving up energy costs, drive it down with a policy similar to Trump's all energy approach and then invest heavily in research on how to displace fossil fuels with cheaper energy, not just alternative energy.
3) I married at age 20 and had my first child at 21. It took me until age 24 to graduate college, since I had to take night classes until I got close to graduating, then my wife worked, while I went to school and took care of my son.
I worked 80 hours a week and I don't think it was white privilege that got me promoted to a corporate officer in 4 years out of college, but instead it was reading the tax laws of ten countries (not my job) on my own initiative and figuring out how to save my company millions in taxes.
Later, I made a career of risking everything by joining companies at the edge of bankruptcy or starting companies from scratch. Most people wanted security, I wanted "risk" and reward, my way of managing risk was to figure out how the company made money and focusing on that. So, many organizations get internally focused believing they add value by having more and more reports that no one reads and sitting in meetings and not making any meaningful decisions. I do think I was blessed growing up in a small family business, whereas children we were employed picking up trash and cleaning bathrooms for the workers. We learned no job was unimportant and never ask someone to do a job, you wouldn't do.
As for voting:
I do think we need campaign finance reform, but every proposal has been more inclined to tilt the playing field than promote real reform. Since we are really a union of states, I think the only way you can effect real reform is to disallow any national political organizations and limit all political contributions to the state in which "the person" (which includes corporations, trusts, etc.) officially resides/domiciled. Imagine if two thirds of the corporations in America could only make political contributions in Delaware. Or if Soros and any organizations that accepted contributions from him could only operate in New York. Politics should be "siloed" at the state level. That is how our country was designed to stay centered. Suddenly politicians can't be primaried by an opponent funded by out of state interests... they have to focus on representing the citizens of their state. Politicians would no longer "toe the line" but rather represent their voters. There would still be cases of "bought" politicians, but it would be hard for wealthy people, unions, corporations, etc. to acquire enough politicians to drive national policy.
Trying to cap spending won't work for a host of issues...
For media outlets that operate across state lines, the FTC should take steps to make sure their reporting does not favor a political narrative. Make the national media more fact focused and less "persuasion" focused. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press technically only apply to criticism of our government. The idea was to protect the media from the government, not empower them to advocate on behalf of political parties.
I think federal term limits need to start with Congress and also apply to senior positions at government agencies. No one should be in those jobs for more than 12 years, total... not 12 years each. Elected representatives are supposed to be "citizens". The most important check on government is someone knowing they won't be there for more than 12 years.
Judges are tricky, they are not elected but rather appointed and you want some consistency. Some have called for 18 years terms for SCOTUS judges, but they already serve on average only 16 years. If you weakened political parties, I think the SCOTUS issue would go away. I don't think district federal judges and magistrates should hear any cases that extend beyond their jurisdiction. No more venue shopping. Cases that have a political component or potentially could change the common understanding of the law, should be heard at the Appellate level and skip the lower courts entirely. There is something moderating by a group of judges, that helps to screen out the bias of individual judges.
I don't like gerrymandering, but I am not sure states would totally give up on having power in how Congressional districts are determined.
There is no way the tax code after WW2 could work today. After WW2, there was the US, previous developed nations that were in ruins, and undeveloped nations that had no ability to compete with an industrialized America. It was the ultimate global "protectionist" solution... US companies had no competition. So, workers could demand higher wages and not worry about foreign competition. In fact, our modern-day tax system suffers from being linked to a time when America intentionally disadvantaged our companies to help foreign economies to recover.
The main reason wealth has been concentrating among the wealthy is because labor has been commoditized, while capital remains in short supply. Think of it this way, if there was so much capital in the world, that the wealthy could not even loan their money out at "negative interest" rates, how quickly would their wealth dissipate. Globalism has done that to labor to some extent. You can tap into the cheapest labor in the world, put a product on a container and sell in the US at prices, US workers can't compete with. It sounds great to say we are lifting up workers all over the word, but as you point out, we aren't, we are impoverishing workers all over the world. So, we need to create significant barriers to trade and switch global taxing from taxing "production" to taxing "consumption". We want to tilt the world in favor of the local worker... If the wealthy can't produce something in India and ship it to America for less than they can produce it in the US, then we will have created a similar situation to one that existed after WW2, but rather than the situation being a product of the "world in flames", it is product of tariffs. Yes, things will cost more, just like it did after WW2 until cheap imports showed up, but workers will be earning more.
