I think about this often, tbh. Controlled opposition is real and used often, but I think the reality comes down to two scenarios: violent and non-violent, i.e. civil war of sorts or somehow things getting fixed without bloodshed. Archetypes like Trump embody the latter; that somehow there's hope that someone could come in and gut the system just enough to stop the deep-state or the administrative state, or whatever it's actually called. If people were actually held accountable for activity as a government official that leads to the detriment of The People (or some legalese like that)...