Democracy much like religion is a way of pacifying the masses while you let them choose between illusory candidates. Meanwhile the large interest groups engage in the “real democracy” enacted by their capital. (legal in the EU since 2007 btw, that was the beginning of the end) We the cattle are calm and everything resumes as usual till line doesn’t go up anymore. When that happens, you find a couple of scapegoats like Madoff or Muslims, redirect the cattle’s anger and things resume as usual a couple of years later. While the dollar remains the world reserve currency our civilisation will be stagnant because people are closer to cattle than actual rational agents. And the fences are getting better. People now happily opt in for 24/7 tracking. Our only hope is decoupling from the US, that’s it! Bretton Woods’ legacy needs to die for there to be real democracy. Just from the top of my head, MS “allegedly” bribed several government officials throughout Europe to guarantee the presence of Windows and office in schools at the detriment of open software. Thanks to that we bread an entire generation of people who can barely use a printer or zoom competently. Do you think these are the people that will vote for the wise egalitarian leadership that will bring balance to the force? The only option left is to just opt out of society, be kind to everyone and wait it out till we devolve in idiocracy (like the US) at which point we can start with a clean slate.