Democracy only works when a people has a backbone. If the mind and the principles forged from it are looked down upon, and watching videos of people complaining is deemed the highest form of thinking, a society is not worth a representative government. It must be controlled from above, otherwise destruction is certain.
That tyranny guarantees profiteering is obvious, but in a nation of people without standards, everything is preferable to a representational government.
The ‘spirit of the people’ is no longer a western phenomenon - we are in a state of decay, and the few of us who are able to think realize that this is not our governments doing, but the results of not having to fight for anything. People, like all structural, tension-based entities, are in general not worth much to others if they are not forced to make an effort.
Philosophy has never had anything to do with the present, with the current political misery that is almost always occurring everywhere, but with ideas that may carve out cultures from coming centuries. In a generation of people who have been trained to not think about anything but the bliss of momentary indulgence, such activity is naturally considered useless.