American politicians won't enact laws that impair the data broker industry which has been around for decades. Voters are kept largely in the dark by a press that doesn't want to expose how the sausage is made since they have a seat at the table.

I don't buy this stuff about "the press" at all. The press in America was firmly behind Hillary in the 2016 election, and look what happened. The voters do have a will of their own and they're not just doing what the press tells them. (This isn't to say the voters made the right choice: the way the voters have voted is why we don't have strong data-protection laws, along with a lot of other things the Europeans have such as a better-functioning healthcare system, better public transit, etc.)