I don't necessarily agree with the 100% bleak outlook but so far as our elections go, we have 2 parties so for any office we usually get 2 choices. Neither are picked by us so much as the rich who contribute to those candidates who they determine will best maintain the status quo. It's sort of like a restaurant that tells you that you can have any food you want so long as what you want is a hamburger or a cheeseburger.
We get to vote but we only vote for option A or B and we don't get to really pick those options. We do "Do it to ourselves" by maintaining a 2 party system. But by now money is such an entrenched part of our election process that undoing it is probably impossible short of something dire and extreme.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.