I think we're reaching a point in history where technology is winning, meaning that the rich and powerful can use technology to manipulate the poor, weak, and stupid like never before. A democracy, especially now, needs not only an informed public, but a public capable of analyzing that information. What we're seeing is the information being manipulated beyond the ability of the public to critically evaluate it. As a result, democracy is indeed disintegrating, or, more precisely, being dismantled or perhaps made impotent.

Man, later, like a thousand years maybe, in some cyber-revolutionary period, that quote will be plucked from the data cloud to explain what happened in 2020.