The fact that land gets more importance than people in our system is a big part of why Republicans have as much power as they have. We need to at least fully industrialize our system so that having a ton of land in an empty state doesn't give you the right to dictate national policy.
Sadly, this will require a Constitutional Convention, which will under our current Constitution gives even more power to these states.
Interestingly the article governing Constitutional Conventions is under Article 5. I really hope we don't have two of those at once. Things will get very confusing.
Conservative extremists are currently pushing for a Constitutional Convention, because they've gerrymandered enough/almost enough (depending on your particular opinion on "enough" in this radical scenario) state governments to allow them to recraft the Constitution as they'd prefer it to be.
Personally I wouldn't let the systematic flaws in our government system off the hook for enabling things like this to happen, having no formal way for citizens to recall federal representatives, and allowing justice to crawl so slowly it may not stop someone who committed crimes around and about the election in time from wining the next election and setting up a sham trial or impeachment that clears him and prevents him from being charged with that crime under double jeopardy laws ever again like they just did with Ken Paxton. A healthy system doesn't ever get to where we are and there's no getting around that it's part of the problem. It really seems like the laws of this country are not enough to save it.
Citizens united is also a symptom though, frankly I think we're at the point where we either need a whole slew of constitutional ammendments, or a whole new one altogether, but I don't see how either of those options is happening any time soon
Getting rid of Citizens United would be a great first step but things were going downhill way before that. CU was just gas (continually) poured on an already burning dumpster.
But you’re right that money (and the corruption/influence it buys) is the root of all our political problems.
Everyone here claiming to have the answer are identifying things that aren't true in other places in the world that have the same problem: right wing extremist populism.
Republicans were taken over by populists, and populists don't seek to govern, they seek to impose their will.
If anyone here thinks the Democrat party wouldn't be exactly like the current Republican Party if they got swept by Progressives, I have several fine bridges to sell you.