The post you are reporting:
Well Bob, you have, I suspect inadvertently, hit upon the nub.
You make mention of 'it' before you mention 'root cause'. This is exactly how things must be done, you just seem to have the next bit back-to-front.
I'm all for your notion that "the clever ones are those that can [I would far rather it were 'will'] do something about it."
I say 'will' for the simple reason that the ones that you mention are everyone. For as the problem is everyone's the solution too lies with everybody. The trick, as it appears to me, is for everybody to accept their part, as part, of 'the problem'.
I see, in the far distance/in the mists, the root solution in the alteration of the common mind-set that Politics is ALL about Politicians and mostly about Party.
As it is ever 'others' who cause 'the problem', it is ever for others to sort 'it' out.
Register to Vote, with the determination within yourself that you WILL Vote, is the first step.
P.S.
Oops!
The above, of course, is the Second Step, the First being, coming to the realisation that ;we are, each and all, part of the problem, and so part of the solution.'