If you read history you'll find that democratic republics have never fared well in the long run. Ben Franklin warned that the Founders had given us a republic "if we could keep it." He knew republics had been easily vulnerable to corruption, selfishness and citizen complacency because they depend on the concept of civic virtue. Look up the Boy Scout oath as an expression of civic virtue and compare its ideals with the current state of American culture. Most in our now-cynical country laugh at them. Sad.
Oh well, 200 plus years was a pretty good run, I guess.