Some relevant wisdom from the founding fathers of the United States:

When asked about when kind of government the founding fathers had created, Ben Franklin replied "A Republic, if you can keep it."

On democracy, John Adams wrote: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

Thomas Jefferson further wrote that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

tl;dr democracies need to be fought for, or else they won't stay democracies forever.

Regression to the mean...