It’s hard not to conclude that the glory days of the Grand Republic are numbered. I don’t see a vast host of educated voters on the horizon anytime soon.
Antony Jay wrote of Diocletian: "He had seen, nearly 1,700 years ago, the answer to the problem of the huge, overgrown, overstaffed, extravagant, inefficient corporation steadily losing its share of the market: Move all the vital decision-making people and functions to another place, and let the old one cave in. If there is a promising, strong, self-contained subsidiary company to move to, the essentials can survive the disaster."
I believe that something similar may eventually happen here -- a collapse we cannot prevent but might survive. Trouble is, there aren't any promising places to go.