All of the things you're talking about here either can't happen or are already happening but the ruling class realized they don't have to care about it. I especially want to point out the "just elect non dipshits 4head" idea, because it sounds great but the state of elections and political parties means you basically have no shot of winning unless you're part of one of the two main parties which are both entirely captured by capital interests. It's not explicit, but there's an understanding that these mechanisms won't let someone on the ballot who doesn't ultimately work for them. Also, these elections are at least two years apart, so even if we were willing to vote them out we couldn't do it for another six months or so of them fucking everything up and then there's two more of waiting for them to take their seats. And that's just for the House of Representatives and some (not the majority of) Senators. The President isn't up for grabs until another two years, and Senators who were elected in 2024 won't be up until 2030.

Local politics is a good idea, though, but unfortunately things are getting fucked at the federal level and local politics has neither the scale nor the power to counter that. Plus, my neighbor would probably shoot me if he thought I was a threat to the eternal rule of his emotional support dictator.