Historical examples don’t work all that well as proxies, just bc of the amount of confounding factors and unique tensions inherent to a particular time/place…but feel like the British parliamentary system starting from the Carolean era is a pretty solid example.

Crazy concentrations of power and wealth, all kinds of evil fuckery (many having to do with colonial endeavours), but also a fairly stable country that has mostly rolled with the punches, all things considered.

Of course the UK is also currently shitting the bed, so that’s not exactly encouraging…but yeah: “worst option except all the other ones”.

Still think that democracy is remarkably durable, but also agree that we’re experiencing pretty extreme stresses/conditions, and that structurally flawed systems are going to collapse.