When our democracy lets us down as badly as it's recently done, everything is put in peril. Americans were allowed to elect a man who has virtually no knowledge of policy, politics and history. The best we can hope for is that his incompetence merely hobbles the country rather than destroying it. And we arrived at this point via a political system that, as you say, was working as designed.

That system needs to re-jiggered, because the design is flawed. For a while, I thought perhaps the onus should be placed on the electorate. If a potential voter couldn't pass a simple test--politics, history and current events, maybe 10 questions--then they don't vote. But as ER pointed out, this could put us at the top of a rather slippery slope. Telling citizens they can't vote is, perhaps, not the ideal answer.

So let's consider the other side of the coin. Maybe what we need is a way to better vet candidates. Perhaps a term in elected office should become a requirement for presidential candidates. It would by no means offer any sort of guarantee of intellect, character or judgement, but it would provide a political track record.

Could Trump have had success as a mayor, senator or governor? Not without learning a good deal about what it means to hold public office, and demonstrating for the record how he would handle public sector authority.

And perhaps he'd have become a president more determined to make government work for the sake of the people, rather than one determined to destroy government for the sake of destroying it.