It's not a democracy now, but democracy led us here.

Democracy puts power in the hands of people who are most adept at manipulating the voter base through pretext and propaganda, and stacking the deck through policy. Even with a government that does what the people want and even with safeguards to ensure election integrity, it's still a race to the bottom, where the best con men win.

I'm not saying democracy can't work, but it depends entirely on the intelligence of the public, and the public has been shown time and time again to be deeply stupid, even when they mean well.