I don't think people want to replace the elites with void. Maybe that's the case for nihilistic, fringe far-right or far-left parties. But when majorities or near majorities are voting for Trump or Brexit, they want to replace the elites with something else`.
It's funny to watch the elites suddenly renouncing democracy because she stopped serving their purposes (It was quite a relevation to watch reddit go full-on military-dictatorship this past week, but hey reddit is not reality).
Democracy is a very adaptive concept and there is a saying that there are no dead ends with it.