a sense of joy and then a panic

I think in a democracy you have to change the system from inside. I think in an authoritarian government you probably have to create an outside shock, although there are a lot of very well-respected political scientists who do believe that it's best to cooperate with military generals in order to begin democracy, and there are some cases where, historically, that seems to be the case if it's done at the same time that the generals are being eased out of power and there's institutional support, usually in the form of stronger democracies, for a young democracy. So I'm afraid that's not really an insult, if that's what you were trying to accomplish.