Does tyranny stem from too much democracy?

[Igel]

2. It was a direct democracy.

Ours is representative. Both count as democracies in English.

One problem with democracy--and the OP can be correct, democracy can even lead to tyranny while remaining a democracy--is that 50% + 1 can dictate to the others. You can enslave a group or execute a group under the guise of democracy if 55% of the population votes to kill or enslave the other half. US slavery was entirely democratic by that measure, a nasty but true fact. Roe v Wade was undemocratic by that measure.

Lynchings (or "necktie parties&quot were often "democratic." The majority of a locale would essentially vote to hang somebody.

Representative democracies are supposed to put a buffer between mobs, majorities with emotions that don't think things through for the long term. Liberal democracies tend to have a set of laws that are very difficult to get past even with a majority to keep such excesses from happening. Still, given enough of a motivation, a liberal or representative democracy can be reduced to a majoritarian democracy, where 50% + 1 has absolute power.

Of course, representative and liberal democracies have their own drawbacks, and we have to be able to weight which set of problems is less bad and how to mitigate the problems. Many don't--they pick and choose which they like given whatever the current situation is.