I would say people directly voting for candidates that were able to stand without the State blocking them because they had inconvenient political policies is the epitome of democracy.
I would say that equally valuing the votes of every citizen regardless of education level, intellect, achievement is a system that is dumbed down too much to be useful. In every large society, there will be more foolish, uneducated, emotional people than smart ones and by making these votes count the same, you predispose your government to being taken over by a lunatic who appeals to people on the lowest, most irrational levels, such as Trump. In addition, because of the digital age today, the voting system is largely unable to be supervised or directly electronic, opening up the possibility to enemy cyber-attack, determining your leader
for you to
their benefit. Lastly, because voters need to be briefed on a candidate's stand, he needs to make himself public, revealing his strategies and beliefs during his campaign, which causes him to more predictable to enemies. It may be democracy, but democracy is very flawed, often more so than rival political systems.
The idea that it's somehow preferable to have one political party make all the important decisions for a people, like who is allowed to stand for elections, is a joke and is usually only advanced by persons who are insecure and are incapable of having open debates with others, so feel the need to have rules that can stop them from losing.
The idea that a country should be torn between rival political factions that constantly attack and try to discredit each other is a joke, like the left side of your body fighting the right side. When there is a highly competent ruling party, the last thing you want to do is disturb them with internal challenges. There is a reason that you function best with one head, not 2 bickering between themselves trying to take over the body. Of course, if the politicians in this system are not competent, and the economy/technology is failing to keep up with the world, they need to be replaced. It's like Linux, where the system is the most efficient but only if employed by a competent user (and disastrous in the hands of an incompetent one) whereas democracy is like Windows as it is highly inefficient but it is easy to use and designed to prevent disaster but a drag in the hands of any real computer whiz. In China's system, debates are held among the intellectual elite so they can make the decision, quickly implement it, and keep it covert to enemies as long as possible. Having an open debate with the masses is ineffective, too slow, and often a complete waste of time; try it at a Trump rally. The rules are needed to keep the incompetent from meddling with the decisions of those who are more educated and with more privileged information than them. There's a reason that in a family with 3 kids, no one employs democracy. Ultimately, democracy is an act of irresponsibility to push the direction of the country onto the unknowing masses and it allows leaders to simply take no responsibility because they were voted to do what they say they would and any failings belong to the people and the antagonists from rival parties. It is only advanced by people who don't know what to do and fear responsibility for the result and would thus like to push it onto the collective.
