It's fundamental to understand that "democracy" is not defined as "majority voting."

The "demos" (Greek root) are the "common people." The suffix "-ocracy" (and "-archy") means "rule by" or "governance by." What "democracy" means is "governance by the common people."

How governance by the common people is implemented is where problems arise.

Majority voting for example is a conflict-based attempt to implement "democracy," and thus incapable of establishing peace, since its very essence is war. It is essentially a divide-and-conquer strategy, and as with all war is also massively wasteful of life, time, energy, and money.

There are a variety of implementations of democracy that are not war-based, some mentioned in this article, some in the comments, some not noted here.

Those forms of democracy are what to explore and learn and practice to prepare for the collapse of our Federal and state governments (and ultimately regional governments as well, since they are both war based and often largely funded by the state and Federal levels). This applies regardless of how "collapse" plays out, from unguided dysfunction and loss of effectiveness of status quo governments to active establishment of an authoritarian government. Whether compensating for the former or resisting the latter we need more effective systems of self-governance.