Exactly: conservative politicians in Canada can only tinker around the edges, whereas in the US it's the Democrats that seem able only to tinker around the edges of the deep state military-industrial complex. The US has to protect its military supremacy and its laissez-faire plutocracy, above all, whereas Canada is more essentially its welfare state.

The Democrats are impotent because their progressive values are swimming against the tide. But try selling conservative savagery to a well-educated, secular population that doesn't suffer from PTSD from its military supremacy or from the proliferation of guns in its society!

Sounds like you have interesting, cynical, insider stories about politics to tell. My only insider account would be from when I served as a representative in a graduate student council. What a farce that was! But I suspect politicians often start out their training in sociopathy in such humble, powerless councils in college or even in high school. And the question is whether the power dynamics are fundamentally different at the teenage and adult levels.