Democracy is increasingly unpopular because the people who broke it say it can’t possibly work

well put. and the people who broke it did so because they insist it never works (for them); it not working - for them - is actual evidence that democracy is functioning. They simply cannot accept that their ideas are bad, their platform polarizing, their attempts at reassurance outright ghoulish (only a day one dictatorship, it can be bloodless if the left lets it happen, etc.,) - and since they can't have their way with a popular vote, they'll choose tyranny, no debate, no hesitation.