In these times I quite agree with Heinlein’s in Starship Troopers.
But Fletcher, America was not founded as a democracy but a Republic with all kinds of checks and balances to avoid the kind of democratic/populist thang you speak of.
That is one of the reasons the founding fathers, for instance, made a bicameral Congress where there were two Senators from each state regardless its size or population base.
And I guess that’s the reason we have a President with a direct mandate from voters as head of the Executive Branch rather than a Prime Minister who is selected by his party and is a member of the legislative side of government.
And, of course, that is why we have an explicit Bill of Rights compared with the UK’s Common Law.
And I guess that Bill of Rights might be the main reason we are citizens here and not subjects as in the UK.
Our rights come from God/nature/Tao whatever you want to call it, not from any monarch or government. And they are inalienable rights.
It’s got nothing to do with government giving us anything.
They’ll do as they’re told or we replace them every four years and, if all else fails, we’ve got the 2nd Amendment.