And there isn't much choice in representatives. Wish we had more choice than Trump or Biden but here we are again after 4 years.

There is little churn in Senate as well.

Supreme court justice positions are for life.

We're not that far from the ways of Monarchs. The powerful will guard their power.

This judgement requires assuming an external position that "knows better", which is inherently incompatible with democracy. Voters can't be a danger to democracy by definition, even if they vote to end democracy and elect a strongman, well, that was their democratic wish.

I think democracies usually die because of the incompetence of party leaders, policy advisors, and primarily elites. Often the public tries to pivot away from that incompetence by voting, but always get politicians backtracking on their promises (and have no resource, given most not-exactly-direct-democratic election systems, to punish them until the next elections, and not for the things they backtracked or failed on - they had to do it for everything).