I think you pointed the way forward and didn’t realize how significant it is: states and cities.
What states and cities do has the power to change a lot about how we send to make federal laws. It’s not a pipe dream to imagine that an embrace of these ideas at a state level could happen and then bring that change to the national level. I already live in a city with ranked choice voting, in a state where access to vote is pretty solid. I’m going to keep pushing for more.