They go from being used and abused by one narcissistic group of elitist oligarchs to another ???
The only reason we broke that cycle is the Second Amendment, that's why its under attack.
Elitist oligarchs do not set up parliaments unless they are toy (rubber-stamp) parliaments.
I read that during the 300 years before their downfall, the Romanovs executed several thousand people. Whereas within the first few years of their rule, the Bolsheviks had executed over a million. (And Stalin hadn't even come to power yet.)
You might also ask how the Kaiser compared to Hitler, or the Emperors to Mao. I'm guessing Mao was responsible for more deaths than every Chinese emperor of the last several thousand years combined.