I'd have to agree Bernie's plans made almost as little sense as Trump's. Many of his supporters seemed to assume that Europeans would be big fans, but the solutions he proposed often went further than what we have here, repeating mistakes that were learned the hard way in Europe (such as, making something completely free is not a good way to make people appreciate its value - education should be affordable to all, yes, but still require an investment). And that in a country where almost literally nobody in Congress supports anything even remotely resembling Bernie's program.
As for questioning democracy, below Guardian opinion piece is kind of interesting (the author is a Belgian journalist and historian who has been advocating more consultative kinds of democracy, like what he describes in that article).
I don't know that I'd go as far as him, but the one thing that is very clear, is that somewhere along the way, the old ties between politicians and their voters got all tangled, and millions of voters everywhere in the West became convinced that mainstream politicians are all the same and only protest votes make any difference anymore. If the mainstream politicians don't manage to win back the trust of at least most of these voters, I don't know where it will end.