I think Americans like the practical; they like the human. And I like both those things myself, and I try and put them into my books.
Henry Kissinger is the greatest living war criminal in the world today, with the blood of millions of people in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos and Chile and East Timor on his hands. He will never appear in a court or be behind bars.
In fact, it works the other way: A government as big and bossy as this one is maintained on the backs of the middle class and those who hope to join it.