To simplify a little, in a democracy, if 51% of voters are "backwards" in some way, I see it as an acceptable shorthand to say that the country as a whole is (in that particuar way). Because that group will be making the decisions for 100% of residents.
This is the big problem with a "pure" direct democracy: you automatically get tyranny of the majority.
Most of our real world democracies suffer worse problems than this, though. The leadership elected to make the decisions may not even enjoy a majority of popular support. Even having had popular support at an election, there may be no mechanism to compel a government to actually act as it promised to win those votes, other than voting for someone else several years later. The nature of the electoral system may lead to very short-term, populist thinking, particularly towards the end of each electoral cycle.
My own view is that in light of these kinds of weaknesses, many of our political systems in the West are simply not fit for purpose, and that once-pragmatic reasons for accepting those limitations mostly expired with the rise of modern transportation and communication infrastructure. Sadly, I have not yet been made supreme ruler of the universe, so I have limited ability to do anything about this unless a lot of other people start to agree...