OK, if not democracy, what? Three-quarters of Americans say our democracy used to be a good model for others but isn’t anymore. Add me to that majority: I used to be a red-white-and-blue booster. No longer. We just reelected an utterly wrong quasi-human for utterly wrong reasons: if that’s democracy in action, show me the menu, I’ll choose a different entree. My disgust, distrust, and dismay know no bounds: our Founders brainchild foundered. Now what?

Easier to critique than create. Every sentient American has their list why America sucks. The only folks happy here, it seems, are immigrants, whose native nations seem ever so much worse. (Whoever rules the roost will be the last to emigrate.) Would enlightened Russians, Chinese, Hungarians, Indians, even Brits, opt for home over America? Color me skeptical. Maybe some Scandinavians and New Zealanders prefer their locales, but based on headlines, all citizenries seem fed up. Last week France and South Korea chucked their elected leaders like spoiled bananas. America’s November Fifth was no thumbs up.

So what’s next? No crying over spilt Musk. We demand change! But into what? From Anarchy to Tyranny, you can pick Monarchy, Autocracy, Gerontocracy, Plutocracy, Oligarchy, Theocracy, Dictatorship, Republic, or concoct your own. Hungary’s Orban calls his laboratory – sneeringly – an “illiberal democracy.” Don’t dawdle, the clock’s a-ticking, we need some government, no? Few but raging teenagers would check Chaos as their ideal state.

Where even to start? List what you like about America before trashing it: prosperity, freedom, the Superbowl, Taylor Swift, whatever. Now list your gripes. Unless you’re a poli-sci professor, you’ve likely never weighed your alternatives (maybe not even then). You want (come clean now) the government that makes you singular happiest, in the expectation you plural will be well served. Everyone wants less government – of the displeasing sort – and more of the Sugar Daddy who rocks their cradle: taxes no, Social Security yes; wars no, safety yes… and so forth.

And your conclusion is… uh-oh: no government suits everybody or even me all the time. My preference depends on my mood, which side of the bed I got out of, the proximity of April Fifteenth. I chafe at restraints and loathe the ignorant mob. Self-sacrifice is the way to go – as long as I’m left undisturbed.

Plato envisioned a Republic with three classes of citizen: “Guardians” (philosopher-kings, who rule wisely); “Auxiliaries” (soldiers, peacekeepers); and “Producers” (the rest of us) who collaborate amiably to achieve the best for all. Good luck with that! In More’s Utopia everyone shares equally, no one’s richer or poorer, labor’s compulsory, elected officials selfless, and all worship a perfect God (meaning Christian Roman Catholic, in More’s case): “Utopia” means Nowhere. Hobbes has his way, Rousseau his, Marx his, to organize their ideal state. All are bonkers, masturbatory fantasies which make the dreamer (surprise!) the smartest dude in town.

I’m pretty sure our reelected gremlin’s gameplan (if you can call solipsocracy a gameplan) will prove catastrophic. But democracy, American style, permits voters to be blockheads. We can pick pilots clueless about cockpits. In a Carllocracy, voting tests would be administered like driving tests before licenses were issued, only I can’t suggest that aloud lest I be Dem-oted or Dem-onized. I would argue that, to reconstruct our polity, it behooves us to think, only our new incumbents scoff at thought, science, civility, caution, truth and decency, so what do I know?

Respect for government will resume only after our world goes crash. Those who survive, if any, will understand we’re all in this boat together and there can be no winners if everyone drowns.