Probably not. In small towns, the car dealership is one of the most important locally-owned businesses. They sponsor all the community events and contribute to the local politicians. They've got a lot more money to work with than the other typically local-owned businesses like restaurants or retail stores. Pissing off the car dealers is not something any politician - whether red or blue - wants to do if they're going to get rural votes.

Some states are working on it. The reason it's illegal in most states is because it's an old law that was created to prevent Ford, Chevy, etc. from using their huge amount of resources to force smaller dealerships out of business. It's like how Wal-Mart uses it's huge amount of money to keep low prices until it forces all of the local competition out of business, then raises them once their is nothing you can do about it. Most people want it to go away now though, since it's obviously bad for new automakers that want to enter the market but don't have the mass appeal to get independent dealerships to risk having a bunch of relatively niche cars in stock that never get sold.

Because elected officials at the State level receives contributions from dealers in exchange for doing their bidding.

The “pro” argument for it is that it keeps more money intra State rather than sending it upstream to the parent company’s home country / State.

The con is that you’re shafting consumers and eliminating true competition.

We could, but dealers spend a lot of money lobbying to make sure we don't.

Tesla struggling to sell direct in New Jersey is an interesting case study in exactly that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/03/18...

In the US? Good luck out-lobbying GM, Ford, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States It can be changed but that costs money: To change the law via lobbying or by challenging the law in court.