I think they were more worried about entire _states_ going into rebellion and not factions of populations spread across them.

> These are dark times for US democracy.

I don't think that's warranted. I would say these are the growing pains of a country now fully entering the age of always available connectivity with a founding document created when horse travel was the only credible way to travel across it.

> There’s no evidence things are working as intended.

You could say this of many things. The highly monopolized state of our media in the face of this new era is definitely a baffling outcome, and I definitely spend a lot of time thinking about the connection between this and the previous statement.