Because it was bought by billionaires.

Not just billionaires so much as multi-billion-dollar corporations that are too big not to be stronger than (indebted) government and control politicians.

It's been a while but lots of the real gems (precious metals too) have already been sold for a profit so there's not as much upside as there was traditionally.

Without hard-asset inflation, the dollar could turn out to be one of their least-performing assets, and you know they can't have that.

Because it's foundational social contracts rely too heavily on the Fundamental Attribution Error.

And the (simplistic) answer is because many of those 50% vote Republican, because the Republicans say they will fix things and yet always make things worse for the bottom 50%