I don't really have a good suggestion. I wish I did. I kind of believe in the "democracy is the worst form of government except all of the others" statement because it appears to be so. You can probably make better democracies though but they require education and participation. Education you can do at scale, but participation is hard to achieve amongst heterogeneous populations, especially when they're large.
IMO that's why we're seeing problems with the U.S. that simply will never resolve. The long-term future is balkanization in some fashion. Either outright via secession or implied via arbitrary restrictions that make certain places undesirable to go to. Contrast that with a country like Iceland where the population is more homogenous and the democracy seems to work better.
And it's not a race thing so much as a belief/culture thing. Just in case someone mistakenly believe that was what I was implying, it's not.
But I do think it's hard to reconcile saying that you fundamentally mistrust people but then you still want to give them power to make rules for you. The safer bet would be to have less or no government in that scenario unless you trust that you can create a process that really weeds out those who are not trustworthy. It's hard to do that too. Even people who are highly credible (scientists, doctors, etc.) often aren't people you would want making rules for you because they're not philosophers...