You should consider modern democracy as a response to the horrors of the 20th century fascistic and autocratic governments. Especially the case of Nazism in Germany that rose inside of democracy. In the aftermath of WW2 the concept of human rights rose, and the idea the democracy is not a majority rule, and that every democracy should offer basic human rights and protections for minority classes, be it political racial ethnic or religious minorities. This is the prevelant ideal of the modern liberal democracy as is viewed in most of "the west". This is what's being eroded.