>>472730Democracy in the 18th and 19th century was understood not as the state of affairs but an aspirational idea at best, or a menace to be controlled. The classical liberals advocated for a republic in the philosophical sense, and very much disdained democracy. They would write this openly. The democrats of the time represented the interests of those who had money, but who were oppositional to the dominant economic forces that became apparent. That is, democratic politics was associated with an opposition to the banking establishment, trading companies, and rising oligarchs. This was a real trend and remained so until the 20th century.
The reason we speak of "democracy" this way is because the democratic movement was defeated. Oligarchy won in the 1930s, smashing the last significant resistance to it. Liberal "democracy" is entirely alien to any form of democracy, and it is alien to the classical sense of a "good republic". It is a republic, but it is the "bad end" in which the republic becomes nothing more than a vicious machine of backbiting, because the oligarchs decided a long time ago who really rules. The oligarchs see themselves not as citizens, but as princes and kings, and act accordingly.
All of your talking points rely on a purely ideological and philosophical view of what these things are, rather than their material origins or what they meaningfully represented. None of the liberal democracies would qualify as republics in the sense that was meaningful. Very clearly, liberal democracy entailed an oligarchy with command over machines and information, where the entire political process is managed by institutions that are placed "above politics". The parliamentary systems are explicitly not republics - Britain is ruled by a king and maintains overt aristocracy, and the university system openly announces their contempt for the people and that they will dictate what you are allowed to do, think, and be. That is not a democratic society, or anything close. It is the exact opposite. That's why we are told "this is what democracy looks like".
Selection of candidates by lot is not the purpose of democracy, as if the forms and procedures were the meaningful content. The aims of the democrats, and the Athenians knew this, was to raise citizen-soldiers and motivate them to participate in the institutions. The democrats of Athens did not believe ideology or procedure was the basis for their system. The procedure matched what the Athenians with the votes believed was necessary to protect their stake in the process. There wasn't an educated elite in Athens, and the republican philosophical idea is the first to suggest that the state is actually ruled by that educated elite and a military clique. Aristotle defines democracy in that way because he is very hostile to that democracy, being a member of said educated elite who conceived of the different system. So too are the vast majority of political writers - they know what side of the war they are on. They do not want an ideal republic and believe that will last forever. They all believe that some day they will be kings, if not gods.
Put another way - democracy for most of humanity is some sort of cruel joke, and was never the state of affairs we lived in. Democracy in Athens granted the vote to slave-owning male citizens who were soldiers. It was premised on military service as an obligation. It used to be you had to do the service time but you got absolutely nothing for it but a kick in the teeth, and the democratic reforms were about bringing those soldiers into the system by suggesting they were part of the process, and making them take on the obligations of political office. Who the fuck wants to be selected by lot to do more work?