When are people going to realize that Alex Jones is not crazy, and was shouting about all of this 15 years ago? It is sheer snobbery that has prevented a lot of people from understanding him.

Has it ever been different? At the moment that the US was founded, it was ruled by and for the landed aristocracy.

I'm pretty sure that if any of the "minor parties" that you mentioned got near having a share of power, they would by that point be similarly-corrupted, beyond repair.

...or am I just too cynical for my own good?

As it is, the thing most politicians fear is losing re-election. That fear comes less from people scrutinizing their actions while in office, and more about getting funding for the campaign so they can churn out sound-bites that the general populous can digest and (falsely) feel like they are participating in the political process.

Yes they have families and dogs. But it's pretty much one group of people who are on corporate boards, in high-level appointed government positions, and working as lobbyists. Each person may rotate among all these areas, and most of them came up through the same prep schools and Ivy Leagues. These people have a lot of political influence.

For details, see the famous book Who Rules America, written by a sociologist who did a census of the people in all these positions and analyzed the results. Five or six editions have come out by now as he's continued his research and updated the results.

(Most elected politicians, meanwhile, just want to stay out of trouble and get reelected with minimum fuss, whatever that takes. Fortunately that gives grassroots organizations a way to pressure them.)

Of course not, but only because the poors aren't allowed in their country clubs.