The problem is, the simple (not easy) solutions don't give people the power they want, so they're discarded.

We are often told that our modern society is "too complicated" for anything other than rigid centralized control. Thirty seconds of reflection would show that the truth is the exact opposite. It is easy for monarchs to control a nation of agricultural peasants. Not so easy to control a nation of technological innovators and individual creators. Think of a control panel with five basic settings, and one with thousands. Which is workable by a single controller?

I am sick to death of having the principles I believe in linked with “right to lifers”, creationism, and other fundamentalist bull shit.

Pay close attention to who is always doing that "linking." There's a reason for that. The Left wants the debate to be anywhere except the fundamental ideas of individual liberty and limited government. They are dead meat on intellectual ammunition for their ideas, on history, and on sheer common sense. You've seen for yourself how the idea of principles and reason applied to politics and economics is literally anathema to them. They quickly steer the conversation back to the "safe ground" of conservative "stupidity" and "troglodytes." Or as a last resort, abandon the concept of reason and reality in that context altogether. When in doubt, blow smoke.

There's no magic wand answer to fix everything at once. We've been on this road a long time. But with every issue our nation has to deal with, there are usually multiple solutions. And not all of them involve more power and wealth accruing to a centralized authority.

Unfortunately, the latter solutions are the only ones you will hear from certain quarters.

No progressive has ever proposed a solution to any problem that did not involve more power and wealth going to a centralized authority and being taken away from citizens. Anybody is welcome to try and find an exception, on any subject or issue.

Look at the other answers. They're out there. Support them. Vote for people who don't think everything can be fixed if only the state is powerful enough. We've seen how that works. Many times.

We just need to start changing the vector we're on. Begin to bend the curve the other way.

A good start: in any situation, always look to see if it's possible to decentralize the system. We used to operate a lot of this country that way (education, transportation, government itself). It worked, and as with any decentralized system, failures and mistakes can be isolated. A dictator or government monopoly that does something stupid does it to everyone.