John Trumbull’s famous painting
Our Founding Fathers had a skeptical view about government for good reason. They realized something important about human nature which is that positions of power tend to draw people who are not only power hungry, but like to control people.
My personal view about government is that the people who want to have power over other people are most likely the ones that should never be allowed to have it.
I would like to see our elected offices run more like jury duty where candidates are chosen from an eligible pool of citizens and then they hold debates and town halls. Sort of like American Idol, citizens would vote to eliminate one each week until the amount remaining is the right amount to fill the offices that are being run for.
From there, the chosen candidate would be paid a set salary. NO political campaign donations (aka legalized bribes) would be allowed anymore. The selected person would serve ONE term, and then similar to a jury pool would be eliminated from being a contender for serving again for a period of 5-10 years.
I think the system above would do a lot to return political office holders to servants of the people are they are intended to be. Holding a political office should never be a lifetime career as it has become in our current system. Also, taking corporate money out of politics would ensure that our politicians have our country and our citizen's best interest at heart, and not their own.