To me, United States President Joe Biden's inaugural speech came across like a comforting ray of sunshine after the winter of the past four years (Biden shows his mettle at inauguration, Jan 22).

There are valuable lessons that even a small country like ours can learn regarding what could possibly go wrong with democracy.

Singapore is fortunate that the majority of its people have trusted the Government so far and continue to place their faith in how the country is run, despite the occasional outburst of grievances and discontent.

Nonetheless, we cannot discount the possibility of future generations of Singaporeans becoming complacent enough to throw caution to the wind and placing their bets on the unpredictable.

Singaporeans should be aware that unlike America, which is a huge country with the resources and wherewithal to withstand the occasional shocks to its system due to the intransigence of the voters, Singapore would likely collapse if something similar were to occur here.

Singapore's founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew rightly said it takes just one term of corrupt and incompetent government here to end everything that we have achieved so far.

Like some, I was initially sceptical about such a statement, but not any more.

Seah Yam Meng