“Perot was willing to spend mucho dinero to swing the election for Clinton, not just once but twice.”
Bush Sr pissed off the establishment big time when he assigned Dan Quayle to solve skyrocketing health care costs.
Quayle immediately identified the correct culprit: malpractice lawsuits and the need for tort reform. Overnight, every ambulance chasing lawyer, the pharmacuetical lobby, the AMA, the Heath insurance lobby and 3/4 of congress turned from life long Republican supporters to Democrat supporters.
Malpractice had become a government subsidized protection racket that was lining the pockets of doctors, lawyers, big pharm, hospitals, politicians, etc., etc., who could justify layer upon layer of costly and redundant testing, treatment, and capital inrastructure in the name of patient safety, and medical provider risk reduction.
It’s true that Ross Perot’s third party run tipped the election both times - but I’ve always been skeptical about claims that he spent his own money - he could have been reimbursed under the table and there were a lot of powerful lobbies that wanted the Healthcare finger pointed elsewhere.
These powerful lobbies wanted healthcare nationalized and when Bush/Quayle failed to play along, Clinton was groomed as the Manchurian candidate to further that agenda. Bush Jr. was a setback but Obama was supposed to put them back on track.
Obamacare was such a predictable disaster and the election of Trump pretty much snuffed out their hopes.
I think the “deep state” is in tatters - as evil as they come, but leaderless and desperate. Trump may have a far better chance of draining the swamp than even his supporters think. It may not take the form of Democrats being locked up, but it may be happening through attrition and by being starved out. The corrupt lobbyists, bureaucrats and legislators are still there but the flow of money stopped in its tracks when Trump began deregulating.
Recall that Ross Perot actually made his fortune processing Medicare claims.