You mean too little direct democracy. Only a handful of people are actually engaging in local politics and therey are no longer representing the community as a whole. Special interest groups are the opposite of democracy.

Is that your opinion on marijuana policy in California?

Which issues, pray tell, are best governed by local control and which are best governed by top-down, remote decision makers?

The emperor can also be your representative, and so is Putin to russians, and the slightly more complex US system. The slider is democracy to tyranny, just because we dont yet have democracy in most or all countries doesn't change anything here. We just have twisted its meaning to describe some decision power when choosing tyrants. Either all decide equally-democracy , or fewer to very few or one-tyranny.