I think the form of government by which the US was founded is ideal. The US constitution, along with the Bill of Rights, is as ideal as it gets in an imperfect world. In view of the issues we face in modern times, I do not credit this as a deficiency in the founding documents as many people do. Rather, I believe it is a combination of complacency, laziness, lack of wisdom, and immorality that has led us to this point. The constitution, as written, is not being followed and hasn’t for many years. There has not been a powerful enough defense of those principles or those documents. When the government was originally formed, someone asked one of the founders (I believe it was Franklin) “what type of government have you given us, sir.” He replied “A republic, if you can keep it, ma’am.” You see, even the founders were wary of man’s tendencies to become complacent, immoral, etc. There is no form of government that can guard against that (except perhaps a theocracy but that eventually equates to authoritarianism anyhow). I’m not saying that the form of government doesn’t matter. It does. But just because a civilization collapses isn’t necessarily because the form of government was incorrect. The culture is the heart of it all, and ours is soured. As they say, everything (including politics) is downstream of culture.