How might democracy disappear?

From my latest request for requests, anonymous asked:

It’s 2050. Democracy has ended in most countries, with a few exceptions. What happened?

Another reader, Dirk, asked:

If democracy ended in the USA, how do you think it would most likely play out?

Maybe you are thinking in terms of war or pandemic, but external conditions would have to be truly extreme to end democracy in the United States.   The poor military fortunes of the Confederacy in the South, during the Civil War, did not lead to non-democracy (for Whites, slanted source here).  Nor did siege by the Nazis make Great Britain less democratic, if anything the contrary.

If the Anglo democracies are to disappear, it will be because they will have voted themselves out of the idea, democratically of course.

As for many other parts of the world, my view is if you haven’t had democracy for one hundred years or more, it probably isn’t as stable as it may at first appear.