Capitalism isn't all or nothing. The US no doubt has elements of capitalism but it's not everything. There are elements of regulated commerce, and socialism. It's a grab bag. People have a hard time seeing things outside of dichotomies. Some regulation is bad. Some regulation is good. I don't think anyone wants Nestle dumping waste into rivers. But most people also probably think restaurants should be allowed to tie leftovers to charity or homeless (currently they can't in many cities).

The infighting over stuff like this, or at least the way people do it, doesn't help.

Now I see people who a few years ago were maga populists pushing for national socialism. Start with values and let that direct policy. People should be gainfully employed People should be productive Do we want women in the workforce or do we want to incentive family building? Do we want refugees and immigrants and asylum seekers? Do we want foreign visa workers? Do we want to prevent single entities from accumulating too much power?

Then, once we figure that out, what's the most pragmatic way to accomplish this?

For decades the lefts go-to solution for literally every problem was "increase spending" and government paying for it because they are too lazy to figure out real solutions. So they just want to throw money at it and hope it goes away magically, like a shitty parent who gets their kid a Gameboy instead of spending time with them because one is easy, even if it's not effective.