Democracy can work...
I think thirty years ago the vast majority of Americans would have been dumbfounded and appalled by those words simply because they suggest that there might be a case where democracy can't work. It would have been thought unpatriotic.

Since then most Americans seem to have been softened up for some kind of blow and whatever it is, it won't be pretty.

I see political systems and financial situations as two completely distinct things. I find it highly suspicious that the two are being so casually conflated lately.

Financial problems, as difficult as they are, are far easier to solve than to win back a lost democracy. Hell, wars are fought over such things!