Within the context of power, agency, and democracy in our global society, animal neglect and abuse are far from the root issues that we observe in daily life. In fact, most of the situations and problems we see are deep in a chain of much more obscure, yet difficult problems.
Because of this, it is crucial to look beyond the animal abuse, abusers, and political misrepresentation and look at why these exist.
Animals as pets
From the early times of Homo sapiens, humans have interacted with animals. Initially, it was a generally mutually beneficial relationship, where people essentially got workers and animals got shelter and food, but over time this evolved into humans asserting a dominance over animals.
Humans above all else
In line with the previous point is the fact that, over time, humans tended to shift from a trend of respecting nature to one of exploiting it and using it.
Natural Hierarchy
In many "Western" cultures, hierarchy was decidedly natural as illustrated in everything from different forms of Christianity to slavery to daily life. This engrained a belief in the expanding societies that hierarchy is the way of the natural world, and that it must also exist within, and because of, human activity. Humans established social rankings, admired gods, and used the planet's resources. This belief of natural hierarchy is apparent in our daily lives even today, and one of the clear examples of this is the continuous mistreatment of animals: they are seen as objects, tools for us to use for pleasure, work, and food, and as such many people do not feel strongly enough about their wellbeing to bring the issue into the mainstream political discourse.
At first, it is difficult to believe that people are truly benefitting from the doctrine of hierarchy that ensures the consistent mistreatment of animals, but upon deeper investigation it is clear that some parts of our society fully depend upon this fact.
Meat companies, pet stores, and even veterinarians
This one seems pretty obvious; anybody with an economic gain from animals themselves would (and has) benefitted from the maintenance of the status quo. This does not mean that all who are involved in making money from animals are bad, and in fact you could argue that veterinarians are helping animals, but many of these jobs exist because of our dominance over animals.
Consumers of meat and outdoor sportsmen and women
Many of us experience joy from either hunting or eating meat. This, again, is dependent upon our continual harvest and dominance over animals. The difference in many of these situations, however, is how respectful we are of the animals we consume. In many Native American cultures, for example, buffalo were revered and cherished, and even though they were hunted they were done so out of necessity and respect. The same can not always be said for contemporary culture, where meat is consumed and wasted astronomically.
Pet owners
Yes, all pet owners are benefitting from this hegemonic hierarchy. That includes me, and it likely includes you too. Does this make us bad people? Of course not: what it means, however, is that we are contributing to the idea that we are above animals. We control our pets. They live where we tell them to, eat when we feed them, get scolded when we disagree with their behavior, and when they die, we replace them. All of this happens for our own joy and sense of fulfillment. No matter how much we love, cherish, and respect our animals, the simple fact that we own them (which is a speciesist train of thought in-and-of-itself) means that we have something to lose if animals were to be considered equals to humans.