Dictatorships hold ceremonies and call them elections. One-party states hold congresses and call them the people. The American design is ruder: the people can fire the government on a calendar the incumbent does not get to move, and a court can tell that government it has broken the law.
That is not efficiency. It is metabolism. Error is expected. Madison assumed men were not angels, so ambition was set against ambition. Socialism assumes a moral vanguard. Communism assumes a scientific party. Both need you to stop arguing. Our system is built for the argument — including the argument that last year’s majority was a mistake.
Compare succession. In a dictatorship the transfer is a funeral, a purge, or a coup. Here it is January, a Bible, and a man who lost going home. The office is the people’s. That single fact — plus property, patents, and the right to leave — is why American companies, farms, and shops have out-produced the theories that promised to replace them.