Obviously I do not agree with you. The tricky part is where we disagree.
I agree the people in charge have the power. I think we'll identify those in power as different people. And I think the turnover of power in this country has basically been approaching zero for some time.
I read a very good article once that talked about three societies: types 1, 2 and 3. Types 1 and 3 are opposites in that in a type 1 society there is only one acceptable thought range and it is controlled by the government and/or it's representatives. This can be anything from a fascist state to a theocracy, etc. Everything from North Korea to England under Elizabeth to modern day China falls into this. It is without a doubt the default government position in human history. A type 3 has a true marketplace of ideas where ideas compete and the best rise to the top - an Open Society. A Type 3 will have as many "thought" products as there are buyers. If you want excellent political commentary, you can find it. If you want disgusting racist bigotry, that will be there too. In effect, there is no
Overton Window. Good ideas will be accepted on their own merit, and bad ideas will be rejected.
The odd duck is a type 2 society. In a type 2 society there is still an official acceptable thought consensus, but it is no longer controlled by the government. Instead, the official narrative controls the government by controlling popular opinion. In effect, if you control the Overton Window, you control political discourse. And if you control political discourse and the government, you have the power. I think we live in a type 2 society that masquerades as a type 3: The Overton Window is completely controlled in this country by our universities and media. To accept that we are a Type 3 society, an open society, you have to accept that the mainstream media, modern political discourse, and what is more or less taught homogeneously in all major universities and shown as normal on television is a collection of (more or less) political, actual fact... that these are the products of the free marketplace. You'd have to accept that, like the hard sciences, the consensus of the soft sciences is more or less de facto truth. In this regard, it would be as irrational to argue against modern day progressivism as it would be to argue against general relativity.
If we live in a type 3 society. Big if.
It's not an insidious conspiracy as much as it is a coalescence of attraction to power. There's only one government in this country, and it will be controlled by someone (as I said, someone will rule and someone will be ruled). A type 2 society is just a coalescence of popular opinion around a narrative, then that narrative turns around and controls popular opinion. Since yesterday was Reformation Sunday, I think it's appropriate to point out that Christianity went from Type 1 (controlled orthodox dogma) to maybe a Type 3 (true freedom of doctrinal expression) which is becoming Type 2 (homogenous nondenom) rather quickly. Why? Because religions either control the beliefs of their adherents or are controlled by them. If you're controlled by them, you become under the sway of popular opinion -- and good luck! You might even say that the basis of today's beliefs in this country - the type 2 general narrative - is actually the end product of the Reformation.
Anyway I distracted myself but the point I'm getting at is that if the government is the puppet of the general narrative, changing the elected representatives of the government does absolutely nothing to affect real change. Which is a simple answer to why republican control of some or all of the federal government over the past few decades more or less changed absolutely nothing in the trajectory of this country.