Nothing is ever black or white. The US historically had and continues to have democratic elements in its system of government, although people are correct that it has always fallen well short of fully democratic. That said, experts on democracy have all documented a dramatic decline in the health and functioning of those democratic institutions in recent years. Some experts have described it as the largest and most rapid decline ever documented in modern times. But it's still not as authoritarian as many other nations. Elections remain largely free and are typically executed according to the law, despite bias in the way they operate. Free press continues to exist despite some pressures and consolidation among larger outlets.

Personally I think the only solution to this deterioration beyond continued struggle and education is a localist movement where political power is returned to lower levels of government. This is the only way to preserve democracy when the will of the populace has diverged so dramatically. But no major political factions seem to favor this approach currently.

It never really did. We got lucky by not being in the old world during WW2 so our infrastructure was safe afterwards. That was the only time it was absolutely great to be a citizens. Its been riding on fumes since then, and before then we were riding on hopes and dreams as capitalists pilfered everything. If anything, we are just returning to the time of the rich fucking everyone openly and excitedly.

many of these things are not a 50/50 split and some are too broad. Most don't care about ai except for the datacenters being in their town or using up natural resources. Most everyone is for free speech until some special snowflake issue of theirs makes them want to have an exception carved out just for them. The problem with gun control is it should be a local thing for specifics. Highly dense areas do not want people walking around with guns but the more isolated homes are the more it makes sense to have on on you. White supremecy is obviously not the view of most people. Our democracy is in crises. Its kinda working but it needs a lot of repair and its unclear if that will happen or if it will bust completely first.