The downfall of democracy starts with our idealisation of this form of government. It's a bit like love and marriage... Nothing is ever perfect. 

If you think your married-life is perfect, you must be living on the celluloid or acetate filums of one of these old TV advertisements for vacuum-cleaners of the 1950s. You're either male — white and clean-shaven on the way to your sales office after a hearty breakfast of newly flattened cereals  — or you're a permed-hair female barely emerging from slavery enjoying the magic of the new suction machine for whatever pleasure, as long as you're wearing an apron with frills.

Unlike marriage, in democracy, you are entitled to your opinion though. But like marriage, one has to work at maintaining a certain ideal in the relationship. Young horns falling in love, getting married, having kids, soon find it's not always all the bliss it's supposed to be. Most males end up at the pub talking about their blissed married life, while leaving the ironing and the brats to the missus... 
      In democracy should you not love any candidate more than 66 per cent, you can become a candidate yourself or vote like a donkey — or do what you bloody well like, but don't complain too much when Harry, Tom, Dick or Joe is killing your entitlements... 
      It's hard to divorce democracy, unless you go on a wild revolution and start to remodel the system... Soon you could find that your hero is a worse fascist than your previous fascist leader — or that some idiots decide to behead people because these people don't believe in Allah as they should. Unless it's a French revolution and people are beheaded because they belong to the wrong revolutionary sub-committee...
      There will be disagreement with your many million other partners and should you be really annoyed, you have to show this disagreement loud and clear, otherwise you're a pushover or a wimp. Mind you, you might be correct about what you do or vote for, but it's likely it won't change the crummy way you live... unless you know how to work the system. This is how it works:
      You need to know someone. You need a certain amount of self confidence akin to psychopathy. You need to lick arses for a while, then some people will start licking yours if you know how to climb over poorer people than you are. You can also join a group like a church or a "club" and become a "well-known entity" for your devotion. You know the value of favours.
      If you play your cards right, you can become "rich". Being rich is a way to make the system work for you, but you need to prepare to be ruthlessly assertive, giving the impression you a kind lovely person. You also need a vision for the future, at least for the next five minutes — or a great vision of something made of glass and concrete, taller than next door, and with gambling rooms... 
 Or you can set some moral limits. You might decide that Tony Abbott is an idiotic dork and you want to find a good sort to fight him square on. But most of them, opposite fighters in the ring — the political circus — are wimps and relying of Tony's dorkiness to give them points. It's a cheap way of "winning" without showing an ounce of ballsiness... Or they might sleep in the same bed should a war be on the menu.
      Considering that too many politicians are morons — many of which are idiots still clinging to the bible to tell you that your life is in god's hands, while they do the dirty on you and lie — you should be able to tell them to sod off...

Unfortunately, the political choice has become more and more blancmangey these days... Our inspirational characters like the feminist Germaine have been softly displaced by the rabid and opportunistic Janets, or the ocker Barry McKenzie have become old-hats, while others geniuses got buried by their own solidified regurgitation as statues dedicated to the uselessly funny. Our heroes have become dusty legends and have not been replaced, especially not by young intellectual fighters with sparklers in their arse who could drive a Hummer vigourously through the massively garbaged street of "our" confusing present times. 

Mind you, the media has made sure no one can step on real soap-boxes anymore.
      All the wooden soap-boxes have been replaced by crowd-uninspiring plastic milk-crates or have been demolished and burnt at the altar of the big bad wolf. The TV has made us lazy with intent. We laze about on a soft sofa, even if recycled from the street council clean-up, gleefully watching young kids singing awfully insipid songs, while spewing their lungs out on stage, with the passion of dying old dogs. All this uninspired entertainment is happening under the spell of flashy magic lantern lighting and watched by "live" audiences that are going wildly bonkers with loud screams and deafening shrills. Such performances are now only designed to sell more non-generic washing powder or underpants liners. One is allowed to pray for "dead" audiences...
     This is where we're at. Democracy by TV remote, by facebook and by mostly heartless politicians who think carefully about their one-bin-liners, some of whom are ready to go to war to justify the existence of saluted armies — on their way to some middle earth or middle east — or make compromised deals for cash that won't save the future.
      The downfall of democracy often starts with the demand for cash. When you see campaigns by green organisations designed to save the tiger while trying to suck cash out of your already crumbed out pocket, you need to ask yourself one single question. Is fighting big corporation with a bit of cash going to solve this problem or should we destroy the whole cash edifice which is going to destroy the tiger and anything else tomorrow anyway because it does not care? Sure, giving cash to a "good' cause might make us feel good and in charge, but hell, it ain't going to make things happen quick enough. It might provide for more cages though.
      The dices are loaded against decency. Cash and democracy don't mix well.

I give most of work away. It makes it hard to survive, but there is basically no value attached to what I do.
       Same with what a lot of other people do: A parking officer writing a parking ticket for a car that overstayed its allowed time is as relatively useless as a brick in a dusty dumper. Sure the officer is collecting cash for a government agency under a rule that has no bearing on anything else but collecting cash in a parking meter.

In a universe where galaxies are three times the age of this planet, how can one reconcile one's life with being remonstrated for overstaying a space by five minutes? Should I worry about this situation far more than about a couple of mad Higgs boson that could destroy the entire reality without warning? Parking "offence" produces nothing, no joy, no benefit to society other than fill government's coffer with money the government will squander by paying wages for parking officers. Self-fulfilling employ.

But the whole rigmarole only exists because in democracy there is never enough of one thing for the other. By this I mean, should there be more parking spaces than cars, there would be no need for metering. It's a large fault of the capitalist system in which hope for a solution demands greed, excited by restrictions. Not everyone can have the same thing. We can only dream about having the same thing... Modern democracy is not about equality, but about who can control the other half's restrictions, sometimes viciously.
      It's democracy in action... on a planet of fools. It amuses me, really — when I don't cry.

And there is no democracy if there is secrecy. Secrecy is a bit like making love while being fully clothed... It ain't going to work.