Definition:

    According to the commonly accepted definition (the democratically approved definition, you might say), democracy IS SUPPOSED TO BE:
       (1) a political system through which the majority of a state's citizens or its elected representatives make the best or at least the most widely acceptable decisions about all affairs of state by voting.

       But since nobody with a political agenda actually trusts "the people" to vote as they should without first being told how to vote, it's in fact virtually a law of physics, like gravity or inertia, that democracy HAS TO BE:
       (2) a propaganda contest in which the slickest, costliest, most pervasive propaganda almost always wins, whether or not the majority even bother to vote or the majority of those who do vote have any clear idea of whom or what they're voting for.

       Thus, democracy ACTUALLY IS:
       (3) a scam through which a minority keep the majority convinced that all is fair while they (the minority) run the state for their own benefit by manipulating a majority vote for any outcome they consider important. You should note how perfectly this true definition dovetails with the first definition of patriotism.

.        Clarification:

       OK. Just in case the above is too tightly written for some readers, I'm going to run through it again. According to the commonly accepted definition, democracy is one of several alternative political decision making systems defined and distinguished by the kind of hierarchy involved. This is normally in reference to a system of state government. In a democratic state, the top of the decision making hierarchy is supposed to be its base, i.e. the entire population, i.e. "the people."
       This is supposed to make it better than a monarchy or dictatorship in which one person supposedly has things his way, or an oligarchy or theocracy in which one faction supposedly have things their way, because, in a democracy, while everyone can't have things his way, supposedly most people either will have their way or will agree on a compromise. This is supposed to be better because the results will seem better, i.e. more desirable, to more people. Though the word fair is seldom used, because it's too clear for the comfort of the insiders who actually run things, this is supposed to be and does indeed SEEM fair.
       But, there are some inevitable problems with the democratic process and thus with the common definition of democracy. First, assumptions about the desirability and fairness of such a process and its results depend on the obviously invalid corollary assumption that "the majority are always right," i.e. that the majority know what is desirable and fair, i.e. that the more people vote yes on an opinion, the more likely the opinion is to be valid. Second, precisely because nobody with any sense or influence privately believes that nonsense (whatever he may say in public), the supposed process will almost never happen or be allowed to happen, anyway.
       Democracy's shortcomings are seldom addressed because the concept has been virtually deified in America and its client states. A lifetime of indoctrination has convinced most Americans and their imitators that the superiority of democracy over all other possible political systems is unquestionable. In fact, that attitude is sanctified and perpetuated by the opinion making magicians who promote it by focusing public eyes away from the obviously not very impressive results of the process and on the process itself, literally convincing most people that democracy is not so much a desirable means to desirable end as it is an end in itself. And not just an end - a sacred end, which no one should ever question. Democracy may currently be the most sacred of sacred cows, more sacred, even, than the sacred cows of patriotism and "freedom," and most people, even famously intellectual people, are currently AFRAID to question it. Not even I am supposed to question it. But I do, because it is so blatantly illogical not to.
       People, not all of whom are really very good with language or logic, unconsciously confuse democracy with fairness, because the word fairness has been put into the magician's pocket and the word democracy held up before their eyes in its place. It's a trick - to fool you with - get it? Fairness is a very desirable end, because fairness would be an essential part of the elusive ideal no cynical insider dares to call civilization. But the word fairness has not been deified, obviously because its meaning is too clear for the comfort of the rich and the religious who actually want to keep the world unfair (and thus good for them not you - get it?) and who depend a lot on the absence of clarity to keep their victims off balance.
       Philosophical leaders who sincerely want a civilized world for everyone (i.e., obviously, among other things, a fair world) often try to get around this cross-deifying trick by pulling a counter-magician's trick of their own - calling a fair economic system (instead of socialism or communism) economic democracy. But the language challenged majority, for whose convenient unenlightenment the words socialism and communism have been demonized, just as the word democracy has been deified and the word fairness has been disappeared, don't get it, and the mass media of the rich don't help them get it. And, anyway, they're wrong. The logical end of sincere social philosophers, especially socialist/communists is fairness, not democracy, which is not an end but a means - and not necessarily a means to fairness. I don't care how new this point is to you: democracy DOES NOT EQUAL fairness. And democracy DOES NOT LEAD TO fairness, and it is fairness, not democracy, that you should be concerned about.
       Obviously, democracy, which is only supposedly a fair political process, is a means, not an end. The end that any political process should seek is surely a good life for everyone, which ought to be, among other things, fair. You don't need to take a vote to decide whether that's the end civilized people should seek. It IS - period. The notion that such an end would be less desirable if it were not achieved democratically is nonsense. The notion that any end, including UNfairness, is acceptable if it does result from a democratic process is insidious nonsense. The notion that the concept of democracy is so ideal that it will certainly lead to good ends or even the best possible ends, including total fairness, or any other desirable end, is obviously also nonsense. The notion that democracy is itself an end subverts any practical value democracy might have as a means IF it were workable as a means. In fact, in practice, democracy has not normally worked as well as its advocates expect or pretend to expect.
       It may seem fair for everyone to vote, but, first, supposedly fair but really only pleasingly numerous votes don't necessarily lead to fair or even representative decisions, and, second, even representative votes (probably luckily) never happen. It's probably lucky they don't because the majority, though they know a lot about sports, celebrities, TV shows and sex, know so little about important political, economic, social, ecological and philosophical issues that it might be even more disastrous than it is if they had their way.
       But there's little danger of that. The common ideal concept of democracy (a pure religious fantasy) assumes and requires that all or most citizens be well educated, well intentioned, and actually likely to study all issues carefully before each citizen separately makes the best decision he can and votes accordingly. But nothing like that ever occurs. It is absurdly ironic that people who call communism too ideal then turn around and "believe in" democracy. "Believe in" is a religious phrase, and democracy is a typically unbelievable religion, because, in fact, most citizens are either not capable of being well enough educated to vote wisely or with respectable intentions, or they are just circumstantially never that successfully educated.
       In either case, every thinking person actually knows the majority can't be trusted, and it IS as certain as the law of gravity that nobody with a political agenda who has the will, the wit and the way will EVER permit the majority to vote until he has done what he can to teach or persuade them to vote as he wants them to (and that includes you, Mr. Liberal). Therefore, as clarified by the second definition of democracy listed at the top of this document, democracy ALWAYS includes or virtually consists of a competition of propaganda promulgated by competing minorities. Let me repeat: this is as certain as any law of physics because nobody with any sense, whether cynical or benign, no matter how pious his protests, actually "believes in" the majority. And that the wealthiest or best funded minority's propaganda will probably win is SO probable - so near certain and so well known that mass media in America ALWAYS compare competing candidates' or competing factions' bankrolls more prominently than they compare their ideas or agendas - don't they?
       Also, because huge numbers of votes are involved in any state with millions of citizens, democracy always immediately devolves into a contest between only 2 or 3 inertly established factions with enough backers to hope to outNUMBER the combined opposition. And this means smaller factions, even if they are logically most likely to advocate and achieve the most ideal ends, are discounted.

WORST,
in any normally large population, since communication of propaganda or reasoned argument has to be of the mass kind, mass media owned by the wealthy end up writing, producing, directing, and staging all elections. That's obviously what happens in America, the self declared bastion and best example of democracy, where Americans are routinely rehearsed by the mass media on their assigned political positions, thoughts, and voting intentions for up to two years before they almost always vote exactly as they've been told they will.

       Democracy is supposed to be: (1) a process whereby the majority of a state's citizens make the best or at least the most desired decisions about all affairs of state by voting. In fact, democracy is: (2) always a propaganda contest in which the slickest, costliest, most pervasive propaganda almost always wins. And, though in rare instances, scattered widely in time and space, people do sometimes surprise their puppeteers and vote in their own best interests, democracy is normally: (3) the perfect tool of rich capitalists, both ensuring that the will of the rich will almost always prevail and at the same time supporting an illusion that decisions are being made by the people.

        I can read the minds of people whose objections to cynicism (meaning truth they aren't prepared for) are so repetitive I have them memorized, so in response to their anticipated question - "But what the heck have YOU got to offer in place of democracy, HUH?" - outraged, sceptical, and also seriously curious readers are offered my Note to Nowhere: If Not Democracy, What?

MORE DEFINITIONS