I accept that, and I still support the concept of democracy because it is the only way I can influence the outcome by some tincture or drop in the bucket, and walk away satisfied even if "my side loses".
Protecting our Democracy means ensuring the melting pot works, and we are not divided so badly as to be questioning each other's basic realities.
Without a common ground, we find ourselves as tribal enemies who seek power for the sake of it. For stopping the others at all costs.
We then wield "Democracy" as a cudgel in our quest to destroy the others. But then, win or lose, it is no longer a Democracy.
The most Democratic thing we can do is maintain societal cohesion through simple indoctrination. Things that may be called unseemly for a free people who want to "think for themselves", but since all of that boils down to our people sipping from one bowl of propaganda or the other... it must needs be ours and no one else's.
A kind hand to guide and keep our people within the guardrails of sanity. To adhere to enlightenment, the scientific method, etc. To seek reason from madness and to NOT behave or act as the tribal !@#$s we aught to know that we are. And for god's sake, to shut out the propaganda of our foreign enemies. Example, Russia. Free speech CANNOT mean they are allowed to corrupt and influence us.
To these ends, some of our freedoms must be curtailed. To be allowed to err so greatly as we have... is for our society to unwittingly seek its own demise. I value an understanding of how we got here, and the steps needed to correct and avoid further harm. For example, I do not wish to end the first amendment... but we must not allow it to be abused either. There are limits to free speech. To the promotion of things such as... the earth is flat. Okay, that's so easily disproved... and almost harmless. What about when they say the election was rigged? When they call for violence over "stolen" elections? When they stoke stochastic terrorism?
Such things need to be addressed, and yes, it requires that we come to a new understanding on how we honor the Bill of Rights. A libertarian / anarchist view of it would allow human nature to simply end us. For the Bill of Rights to essentially end itself. We need protection from ourselves, while we still can. We do not honor our Democracy or our freedoms if we simply let them slip from our grasp. And I do not think anyone in the past appreciated how difficult that is going to be in our modern world. We must evolve and adapt in ways that may seem uncomfortable.