[rajin444]

Do any modern western governments truly represent the interests of their people? They're all suffering from fragmentation and discord. Without high trust culture, they end up balkanizing their people and being ruled by oligarchs.

I think the non representative democracy the US initially was worked well (as history can attest to). Fully representative leaves you with demagogues (as the current day can attest to).

> history

There have been plenty of good kings who saw it their duty to see to their people. This is more or less the default for how humans operate (families, tribes, businesses, etc.).

> present day monarchies

There are not any left in western society that I'm aware of, so there's a bit of a sampling bias.

[allemagne]

If you can ignore all the bad examples then you can definitely confirmation bias your way into any type of government.

The reality is that if you're looking for government to solve all your problems then you're going to always end up disappointed. You agree that history attests to the success of the US, but let's not kid ourselves. It's still the most successful country the world has ever seen on multiple metrics. That's not because its non-representative (aka flawed) democracy happened to put the right people in charge, but because the power of the government was deliberately limited by the rule of law.

I agree we should be worried about demagoguery. At the very least, though, I'm grateful that there isn't just one absolutely powerful person, explicitly above the law, that can fall under the influence of a Rasputin or their favorite concubine.