The ratification of the 17th Amendment was the tipping point in the progress toward the Unitary totalitarian State. I don’t think we can go back. The public school system has de-educated the population and there is no concept of History. With no history there is no awareness of what has gone before, what has succeeded and what fails every time.
I’m not very hopeful either, for the reason you describe.
Still, the Assembly of States will meet this coming December. Perhaps there is a flicker of hope.
If the states do not decide to do an end run around our oppressors in DC, and soon, the grand experiment in American republicanism will be over, and the world can expect a new Dark Age.