Politics is not the problem, politics is essential for our lives, what's wrong is that it simply serves big capital these days, with growing disregard for civil rights.

I'm sure there are ways we could update the political process with more modern ideas of logic, science, election theory, and consensus.

look up Fair Elections. It's simple and promising.

Exactly money must be taken out of politics, i.e.:

No more lobbying (= legalized corruption).

But how are you going to do that when rich people are already in power and are using their financial dominance to protect their monopoly of power?

By eliminating taxation (governments can simply print the tax money they need according to a fixed formula against the national GDP), and then using computers, allow citizens to directly apportion their equal portion of the taxes to the causes they think are worthy, updated on a regular basis (I suggest daily so that the populace can respond quickly to things like natural disasters).

A simple approach would be to let each person subdivide their tax "share" (which is equal among all voters) by 1% increments. In addition, private individuals could establish "tax baskets" that could be used to fund a number of smaller entities with a single appropriation, so that your 1% could be apportioned among hundreds of entities without you having to type them all in.

This approach completely eliminates money from politics: politicians no longer have the power to tax specific individuals (or grant special exemptions), and they also no longer have the power to give money to people within (or outside) government.

It does not eliminate the ability of government to meddle with regulations, but the populace can trivially respond by docking their budget immediately in retaliation. It's amazing how much better behaved government institutions are when they are directly answerable to the people.

This approach is completely reasonable in the information age and with monetary systems, like the US, where fiat money is used. We already calculate GDP numbers, and the number for taxation would simply be fixed as an amendment to the constitution (while simultaneously invalidating all other tax powers from the government).

For extra fun, double the amount of tax dollars created and give everyone in the country a basic income out of it. I suggest that half of all taxes go towards a basic income (social money for individuals), and that the other half go to the community in the form of government, law enforcement, schools, police, etc. and whatever other social programs individuals want to apportion their social tax dollars to (social money for the community).

Certainly an idea that should be discussed in the mass media. (I'm not counting on US mass media, though, for some time to come.)

In other words, it can be summed up as 1 way to make democracy more direct. (The problem is, Washington with its ever-increasing level of corruption, is never going to want a more direct democracy.)