You and I hold much the same position.

The nail in the presidential coffin for me was when the “Read my lips, no new taxes!” campaign promise was violated by HW. I had a resurgence of hope that maybe congress could reign the federal government with Newt Gingrich and the “Contract With America”. It amounted to nothing. At that point I realized the Federal Government had, like cancer, metastasized to the point where the “will of the people” had little or no effect.

In the last 20 years, I’ve come to see it as an oligarchy with special interests vying for control of the tax payer dollars, and Federal Reserve bankers milking (enslaving) future generations through inflation and national debt.