The US telcos embed themselves into the local governments, keeping competition out. It's governments, all the way down.

That's an odd indictment of government. If government is taken over by private companies, that's government not working, and it's certainly not a democratic government to blame, it's an infiltrated, corrupt political system.

I may tweak your statement a little that the government is run largely by special interests, i.e. small minority wielding substantial influence (is a union a 'private company'?). Why must my city government make the decision on what company may drive a truck in a circuit to collect my refuse? Why was my local YMCA denied a permit to build an indoor pool while the city built a luxurious, beautiful, money-sucking 'Community Recreation Center' (that has an indoor pool)?

Given the broad prevalence of this type of activity, it seems to at least suggest some fundamental breakdown within the system of representative democracy or, as you suggest, it is an indictment of governments, in general.

That while Telco's do use regulatory capture well, you have to admit there's some sort of natural monopoly inherent to hard wired internet service.

The known solution to this is local loop unbundling, but the ISPs lobbied their way out of that more than a decade ago.

This statement is usually made without any substantive evidence to support it, primarily because every monopoly, in practice, can only truly be a monopoly when the government mandates it. When firms are forced to compete on the open market, without the option of non-market strategies, someone will find a way to move in and compete.

This is actually self-evident in the fact that these companies are actively engaging in non-market strategies. There would be no need to practice such tactics if they could simply hold a 'natural monopoly'. Others certainly disagree, but for me, this argument is the one I find most compelling.

And those companies had no choice but to go along with it?