[tux3]

To an extent, the political climate and the weight of existing institution can uphold the culture.

People governed by politicians with suboptimal characteristics don't necessarily get to make decisions with perfect information, or to enjoy a voting system where votes have equal weight and reflect popular sentiment.

A sufficiently corrupt system can self-sustain for many years. With enough indirection and few votes, people have correspondingly increasingly limited input into their political decisions (or the indirect decisions of their representants).