The every 80 years is possibly also exemplary of generational forgetfulness. Once your grandparents die off, there isn’t anyone around to represent the lessons from a past era.
I think that people basically want a democracy when it can be achieved. In most times and places in history it hasn’t even been on the table nor was remotely possible. But where it IS or HAS been and people vote themselves into trouble and away from democracy is because they can be feared into giving it up.
Why is that happening across Europe and the Americas today, when famine, war, or crushing economics aren’t necessarily a contributing factor? Media.
The wealthy, the powerful, and those able to seize the mechanics of the mics and cameras are able to manipulate the masses quite easily. That is a fairly new phenomenon, only available in the last 150 years, and going back that far it was much more rudimentary. Print only and it took weeks or months for that print to reach a majority of literate folks who cared about politics or state/national affairs.Radio became prominent, when, about 1920? Followed by newsreels and finally TV about 1950? So we have about 70 years experience of being a mass-manipulated organism in Western societies. There was no evolutionary preparedness for this.
Today you have billions locked onto screens and radio and you merely need to control the message.