-- well, it's never actually stated who or what causes the Change. Many people -assume- it's God or Gods; others think it's aliens, or whatever.
Plenty of people worship Gods who are supposed to have caused disasters; Noah's Flood comes to mind.
Everyone except for the bunny-ears atheists recognize - in story - that the change is and act of God. Which god, or which specific pantheon or aspect of gods is left to the different interpretations based on preexisting faiths, but the hand of a higher power is almost universally accepted as the only logical conclusion by most of the characters.
And there is a difference from reading about a fictional flood that happened six thousand (or whatever) years ago and experiencing divine wrath. I mean, even people who suffer through natural disasters today can say that it was the act of god, and who can know gods will? This is completely different than living through an event (the Change) that is obviously an act of God, and which is
obviously murderous in intent. The motives of the divine are not unknowable and mysterious, His acts are specifically designed to kill you.
-- there are many types of government in the post-Change world. Some are democratic, some not; the Clan Mackenzie is a democracy, for instance (rather more so than the contemporary US, in most respects). Others aren't. Various characters prefer various types. Are you complaining that the books aren't preaching more? People differ, systems differ, legitimizing myths differ, and none of them last forever.
The McKenzies practice Tanistry and have a clan structure. This is not democracy. And I think the books are plenty 'preachy'. It's just that they preach that there are divinely-selected rulers who
will command power over the wretched peons of post-Change America, and any desire to revive self-government on a large scale isn't even worthy of serious consideration.
-- the peace settlement after the Protector's War/War of the Eye enforces freedom of movement, and it's mentioned repeatedly that the Lady Regent (Sandra Arminger) enacts a number of reforms, quietly killing nobles who object too strongly.,
-- it's mentioned that a large proportion of the nobles die either in the war or the subsequent troubles, and that the Protectorate is largely run either by reasonable survivors, or widows, for most of the next generation.
I'll go ahead and answer both of these at once.
How, in nine years, do you go from stable republican self-government, to post-apocalyptic shitshow, to stable feudal aristocracy. Key word stable. Stable enough that large numbers of the military-elite, who are almost all thugs of some description, can be killed off and yet still a system of government as ridiculous and un-American as feudalism can remain in place over an rebellious population who have recent memory of self-determination?
Nearly the entire upper echelon of PPA aristocracy is wiped out, including their insane dictator who was holding the whole thing together. And yet the widows have no problem maintaining their newly-invented and institutionally oppressive positions of power over the whole shebang.
It does not compute. It is absurd and unbelievable.
-- there's an old saying, "Adventure may be defined as someone else in deep shit, far away." It's a post-apocalyptic story in which there is a lot of adventure.
Fair enough.
-- the Founding Fathers of the US ruled a society in which every 5th person was a chattel slave, and in which women and men without property had no political rights and substantially fewer civil rights. It was a republic, but not a democratic republic -- though it evolved in that direction. Women didn't get the vote until the 20th century; black men were slaves until the Civil War, and had severely restricted rights (including effective disenfranchisement) until quite recently.
None of that negates my point. The concept of self-government isn't nonviable in a medieval situation. The principles remain the same.
In the Emberverse, the PPA institute a feudal social order in -part- of a world undergoing an immense cataclysm in which over 90% of the population die within two years; a disaster greater than any humanity has ever suffered.
The premise is that this (and the fact that the ****ing laws of nature have undergone a massive, arbitrary, but obviously purposeful change) sort of renders things fluid; people are, for the nonce, more concerned with stuff like "not dying of hunger", "not dying of plague", "not being killed by bands of roving bandits", and then by "getting a crop in" -- the latter in a situation where most people don't have any earthly idea of how to do it with the tools and techniques available.
Meanwhile, established systems cease to exist and their ideological underpinnings are discredited by the collapse.
From the bottom up here, I don't see how ideological underpinnings (All men created equal, self-determination) are discredited. The change is extreme sure, but once the crisis has passed, and people have firm footing again and can reliably feed themselves, there would almost certainly be a societal 'correction'. I'll point again to the quote I made in my earlier post:
"Juniper smiled sadly. And it’s not surprising that you’re the leader in this. It’s the man who has a little who wants more, not the starveling with nothing but an empty belly. Also things haven’t quite had time to settle down and set hard yet. A generation or two, and our friend’s grandchildren here might be fighting for the baron, not against him."
Stirling, S. M.. The Protector's War: A Novel of the Change (Emberverse Book 2) (p. 350). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The crisis has passed, and yet the very idea of a return to self-government it met with disdain and viewed with derision. Of course this doesn't stop the '
democratic' McKenzies from exploiting their desire to be free by encouraging rebellion.
-- Corvallis is a democracy, the Clan Mackenzie is a democracy, the US of Boise is an iron-fisted military dictatorship planning (quite sincerely on the dictator's part) to restore democracy "as soon as the emergency is over", and so forth. The PPA is founded by a brilliant, effective nutcase who happens to be mentally prepared for the situation in question.
In any realistic telling (and maybe this is where my blind spot is. This is after all a fantasy series) the PPA would have been a barely-functional wreck even before the Lord Protector got ganked. Nine years simply is not enough time for people to become attached to an alien form of government. Especially when that form of government is obviously and intentionally heinous. They put slave collars on people for gods sake! And yet the
'peasant' revolt is dealt with quickly, the new aristocracy is quietly and efficiently put in it's place without (apparent) turmoil, and our stage is set for golden-boy Rudi to take the lead in our next exciting installment. It's too convoluted and obvious.