" The tyranny of the minority cloaked in the mask of the majority,” Odrade called it, her voice exultant. “Downfall of democracy. Either overthrown by its own excesses or eaten away by bureaucracy.” Idaho could hear the Tyrant in that judgment. If history had any repetitive patterns, here was one. A drumbeat of repetition. First, a Civil Service law masked in the lie that it was the only way to correct demagogic excesses and spoils systems. Then the accumulation of power in places voters could not touch. And finally, aristocracy. "

― Frank Herbert , Chapterhouse: Dune (Dune, #6)