What's happening in the US is like when a person who is a lifetime cigarette smoker gets cancer and stops smoking. You hope the cancer doesn't kill you, and then swear to never smoke again if you're lucky enough to survive it.
We didn't appreciate how good we had it with our representative form of government. We could have stopped the erosion of our power at any time, when our reps would have more or less had to listen. Now, when we start trying to get their attention, which hasn't happened yet, it's going to be a competition between the rule of law, which is undermined, and the forces that keep our would-be rulers in line.
The prognosis isn't good. But we should get our shit together asap because it's our only hope.