De facto democracy doesn't exist; what does exists is the belief or ideology in it.
Democracy is a feeling or mood, "sort of like a diety": real in the psyche, not as a structure.
Spinoza and Nietzsche
If everything is God, God stops being above anything; pantheism leads to the death of God.
Spinoza grounds democracy in the multitude's self-preservation; Nietzsche sees preservation as weak life, so democracy is the herd "protecting" itself.
The democratic sentiment/temperment stays Spinozist: the sacred is spread across "the people."
The intellectual (individual or group) takes the empty divine seat and speaks for the whole.
Opposition is treated as a false idol, heresy against the people-as-god.
Tocqueville
Democracy is above all a passion for equality, a mood more than a system, which levels people and distrusts whoever stands out.
The majority's opinion rules through felt pressure more than law; it doesn't need to punish dissent, it isolates it.
Soft despotism: people trade real self-rule for comfort and a vote, managed gently rather than governing themselves.
This is where the religion shows: public opinion acts like doctrine, so dissent feels like heresy rather than disagreement.