This was a representative republic, with massive safeguards built in to protect an elite against the will of the people. Turbulence, contention, security, property. I observed that American democracy does not have a very good track record on the first two heads. This country has done very well by property. I diagnosed the problem as follows.
American democracy has a single point of failure.
If the people's ability to vote candidates in and out of office has no meaningful influence on the decisions they make while in office, then democracy does not exist, because the will of the people has no influence on policy. Money has broken that link. Once the people admit a candidate in the gate, they have no further say in what he does, because his exclusive constituency becomes the people who give him the dollars for his next campaign. Though the voters have the authority to remove the politician from office on the next go round, two, four or six years later, this authority is easily defeated by a game involving media-disseminated disinformation, public complacency and short memory, and a byzantine legislative system which shields legislators from being held accountable for the choices they make. Fewer of us are voting , based largely on a perception that the system is a charade and that our votes don't count.