Well, they probably "get it" (in that they do understand what's actually happening), but I think they are literally in thrall to the major interests that Margolis alludes to. In other words, they are not really serving the public (although they might perhaps like to do so if they could figure out how to)...they're serving their major sources of funding and they are dutifully following orders from the people who really put them in office: the banking/military/industrial cartel that really runs the show.

No ordinary public ever really runs a big country, regardless if they go out to vote or not. Major established financial and industrial interests run a big country. If they can control all the major political parties (and they most definitely can), then they can control what those parties do once elected, and what those parties do is continue to grease the wheels of the banking and corporate interests who fund them.

This isn't some kind of a conspiracy. It's simply an established system that looks after itself and maintains itself in the manner it is accustomed to. That means high military production at all times and frequent foreign wars and interventions...or the creation of foreign "enemies" to arm against...in order to maintain and justify high military production.

The same sort of thing happened in the past with Rome, Great Britain, the Soviets, Napoleon, Spain, Persia, and all the greatly successful military empires of past history. They eventually overreached themselves and failed, because their system, based on ever-expanding itself, finally overextended itself to the point where it could no longer meet its financial or logistical committments.