Autocrats have always work to capture and undermine the democratic mechanisms that in principle should allow the expression of the people to take ground within the society. Even at the point where these mechanisms are broken they will keep shouting the virtue of democracy to create the illusion that people have some control but despite these facts, democratic governance remains the most promising governance model to take power out of the hands of autocrats. However, it’s a complicated model to implement well so it works as intended and remains resistant to cooptation over the long run. Direct democracy models are certainly worth experimenting with.