I think you are right to some extent. Democracy as a shallow concept is mainly good at handling despots. The 0.1% can't get much power even if their influence

I think you are right to some extent. Democracy as a shallow concept is mainly good at handling despots. The 0.1% can't get much power even if their influence is relatively large because the other 99.9% is against their one sided interests. But if you manage to convince 10% of something they could potentially get 51% of the influence, especially locally, at which point you have a big problem. Now 10% of the people can decide what to do against the interests of 90% of the people. A two party system makes this even worse in the US. That said, it can be solved within democracy. It isn't the first nor the last challenge facing society, especially a changing one. I think we need to realize that we are in a second industrial revolution, with information this time.