Earlier quoted context omitted.
You my friend must live in an alternate reality where political leadership isn't obviously enmeshed with corporations to a pathological degree - without a revolving door of people circling between them, without lobbying, without corruption, without special deals to the benefit of the biggest corporations, where private corporations aren't abused to bypass restrictions on government powers, and vice versa.
Lobbying is a tiny industry in the United States and corruption is basically a nonissue. With the exception of the current president I haven’t seen any evidence for widespread corruption in the United States - at most it’s a collection of isolated low impact and rare incidents.
Lobbying is only tiny if you look at the individual amounts. Most lobbyists only put forth $5-10,000 at a time because they're not doing it at a national level. But it's the fact that so many do it in so many different places that makes it a threat. Somebody running to be on the city board can have their entire campaign financed by a single donor. A mayor can have their entire income for the year matched by two lobbyists laying the groundwork for a national campaign. One Senator or House member having seven to eight lobby sponsors can almost match their guaranteed salary for that year. There are entire divisions of the finance departments of companies that are dedicated to budgeting for lobbying over the fiscal year. It's a massive force, composed of nearly $4,000,000,000 in "contributions" in 2024 alone.