Your last point is apparent across the Western world. I wrote about it in my rant about Albo - the quality of the people in power is getting worse and worse and worse. It must be the natural end state of Parkinson’s Law. The bureaucracy continues to expand forever and the 1UP always has someone less competent and less likeable than them as their 2IC. This shields them from internal hostile takeover allowing them to focus on their external “enemies” because nobody wants the next cretin, but then because the way the system works they inevitably end up in power anyway and then they bring an even worse 2IC. I don’t see how anyone could prefer this democracy over monarchy. Literally the shit floats to the surface rather than the cream.