The Arab spring was largely crushed with the help of American largesse. We ignored Bahrain, we never stopped funding the Egyptian military and said nothing when they reestablished control.
People are unwilling to oppose government control, and when they are they get crushed by outside forces. People in American continue to work for the government, it's even considered prestigious.
We can't even prosecute torture. People who believe in the government are dangerous idiots.
"People who believe in the government are dangerous idiots."
That might be true, but that's still my point-- it is to some extent democratic. If more people were genuinely and strongly opposed to torture, we'd be getting somewhere prosecuting it. I'd say a majority are weakly opposed and a minority are strongly opposed. If a majority or super-majority were strongly opposed something would be happening.
(Being weakly opposed is basically meaningless.)
In some ways all societies are democracies. A totalitarian society is where the majority either supports the totalitarian regime or at least doesn't dislike it enough to invest the energy and risk required to rebel against it. There's a minimum threshold of support that any regime must have in order to maintain control. At the very least you must have sufficient support among a society's wealthy and powerful (money), those who wield weapons (military and police), and those who control key infrastructure (operations). If those sectors of support fail, kings get deposed.
People are unwilling to oppose government control, and when they are they get crushed by outside forces. People in American continue to work for the government, it's even considered prestigious.
We can't even prosecute torture. People who believe in the government are dangerous idiots.