Jack Smith is well known and liked in leftist circles because of his role in the IRS scandal, working with Lois Lerner to illicitly target conservative groups.
Machine politics. Algorithms, donor lists, federally and privately funded NGO involvement, corrupt ties with industry, captured media, suppression propaganda, and especially ballot harvesting all unfortunately matter more than a true democracy in which policy is debated.
Some causes for optimism but many more areas for concern. One historical reference could be that Harry Truman (Senator from Pendergrast) was put into the Senate by corrupt machine politics. FDR picked him as his running mate (didn't even really talk to him before or after much)
because his current VP (Wallace) was too obviously a communist. Truman was unable to unwilling to recognize the extent to which communist forces were driving the FDR administration. The consequences of that still hurt us today and color a lot of our FP.