Plato observed that democracy always ends in tyranny because a huge percentage of the population will always be simple-minded enough to be duped by a cynical demagogue. Representative democracy ensures the election of blustering incompetents and infantile morons; it's not difficult to see that Trump is merely the USA's symptom of a far more general trend. Modi, Erdogan, Le Pen, Bolsonaro, Brexit, AfD, Babis, Orban, Putin, and far too many others to name are all symptoms of the same fundamental problem: that representative democracy is hopelessly unfit for purpose. Our civilization is ending; we must hope whoever comes to pick up the pieces decades or centuries hence engineers a far more adequate approach to governance.