First, government does not lead. We are led by technology. Be it a chipped stone spear point, or the latest AI, technology changes how we interact with our environment and each other. Changes in technology change what we value, and where we put our "industry" (our attention, resources, and energy). The role of government is to smooth out bumps in the path forward that technology has cleared.
Second, politics does not solve problems. Politics, is by definition, a conflict resolution process. It is designed to pick who or what wins and who or what loses. Solutions are created outside of politics, then solutions are debated, and most usually solutions, which might or might not be good, are cut back, pared down, made ineffective enough that they can garner the votes needed to "win". Generally, winners in a political system create the least amount of needed change.
Third, the party system was created to dissipate energy. Democrat/Republicn/Democrat/Republican... It is a negative feedback loop in the system that saps energy which might otherwise produce changes. The party system is like a playground merry go round. No matter how much energy you expend making that thing spin, faster, and faster, the playground never improves.
And, finally, we live in an immensely complex economic/social/governing system that is autopoietic. That is, it is self defining, self directing, and self healing. There is no "leader" no "oligarchy" that is in charge. The system is "in charge". The system created, and can destroy, the oligarchy. The system defines who or what the oligarchy consists of: is it the "richest"? the smartest? the most humane? The system does what it needs to do to perform the task for which it was created (to enable exploitation for the benefit of the few). It chooses the criteria by which we pick "winners". It picks who and what can "contend" to win. It is very difficult to change an autopoietic system, which is what led to this quote from Buckminster Fuller, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” The same thinker provided a goal for progressives as well: "Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.”