our elites have failed us and it's only a matter of time before history repeats and the streets run with blood.
You have a very... limited understanding of history if you think that the elites "failing" the commoners tends to result in their blood being spilled.
A much more common pattern is that the commoners get out of line and their blood ends up running in the streets, and then order is restored.
I'm thinking elections are a lot more likely to reform government agencies than riots.
You've made an assumption about who's blood I was referring to. You've also inferred here that I'm presuming that civil unrest will necessarily lead to change.
So that there is no room for misunderstanding I will rephrase:
Those of us who have had faith enough in "the system" to be self correcting are in a majority but none the less our cohort is shrinking.
I am not suggesting that there will be a rapid change in the numbers of the politically active, I am suggesting that a significant number of those who have remained passive will not do so for very much longer and also that those who are already politically engaged will become disenfranchised with the notion of slow, progressive change from within the system and will become radicalised to varying degrees.
Note also I am not advocating a more radicalised approach either but am becoming more resigned to a significant change in the size of the outlying region of the political bell curve which I believe will result in a positive feedback loop where those in power and the middle that still support the system will double down against those who have given up on the idea of being able to change the system from within.
In actual fact I do agree that elections are better than riots but there comes a point where a large enough minority disagrees with this and that's where things go awfully wrong and simply blaming the rioters in isolation does nothing to remedy the problem.