The parallel mechanisms of government that have appeared in this administration are revealing -- diplomacy run from the Upper East Side rather than Foggy Bottom, etc. This administration is fundamentally corporatist, so it sets aside the instruments of the republic, and lets the consultants run the show. And, in part, this is useful. This moment is the ascendancy of the Machiavel, and the decrease of the Republic, and this is a necessary circle. Pisistratus diminishes the Areopagus. The individual within society has to be defined from time to time, else it grows indistinct within the republic.
But that circle of meaning can also be made discontinuous in the process of widening it. And, separately, we shouldn't be surprised if the profits of the present moment ultimately don't accrue to the republic.
And the decline of the republic isn't an idle matter. It is the survival of both the state and those within the state. People are dying on the streets of the prosperous nation, and more citizens will likely die on the streets in the times to come.