The city government before the Red War, was an autocratic oligarchy of a unitary state. The people have no say in Consensus laws or elections, meaning that they can’t vote and protests would generally be ignored. Even if it was “democratic” (Please keep in mind that I’m using the terms Democracy and Democratic in terms of the people getting to vote. This has nothing to do with political parties for all the Americans out there.), I doubt that protests would be heard. [spoiler]Not to get political but the United States in 2016/2017 when President Trump was elected is a good example of a “Democratic” nation ignoring huge chunks of its population. *edit* There were mass protests across the country. [/spoiler] Post Red War, things are really bad. The Speaker, is gone and now the Vanguard has to act as a “political mediator” for the Consensus. A military body not designed for politics cannot effectively govern a nation. Right now, I would say that the city is more like a “Semi-Anarchistic Oligarchy.” Mostly due to the fact that the government has been extremely unstable and indecisive. The problem is, we can’t just flat out disband the Consensus. As much as I personally do not like the way the city is ran, it’s not as simple as many people think it is. I believe France is a good (but not perfect since Destiny is fictional) example of how attempting to dismantle a government without a pre-existing system would happen. Part of the reason the United States was able to pull it together was because it already had smaller governing bodies and laws in place that came together and formed a plan for independence (only after it was clear independence was necessary). Even then, it had numerous early rebellions. France kinda had a pre-existing body when the monarchy was killed, but like the Consensus, the body was unstable and had opposing opinions. [spoiler]I don’t care what people say about comparing fiction to History, there are many parallels between the two. The Cabal society for example is a clear half baked immigration of Ancient Rome as an example. [/spoiler] The point in trying to make here is, there is no existing body or bodies of smaller governing districts with enough power to effectively cooperate in the event of the Consensus being disbanded. For now, we are stuck with the “Semi-Anarchistic Oligarchy”. While I’m aware I might be going way too deep with the history stuff, I think it’s important we look at it. Hope this helped :)