Yes I know what the word is being used these days for but it doesn't make sense. Democracy does not inherently have anything to do with these additional (also vague) terms.
Democracy doesn't have anything to do with "equality in rights, freedom, and opportunity"? That is the point of and foundation of democracy - no democracy without them. It's incredible that people are so anxious to destroy freedom and humanitarianism (why?) that they adopt an obviously false history.
Those have long been believed to be the foundations of democracy; you might have heard this one, which founded one democracy:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ...
That also says governments exist - their reason for being - is to protect those things you deny are relevant.
Then from the French Revolution, and now France's national motto: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. "Liberté, Égalité, and Fraternité are fundamental values that define French society, and democratic life in general."
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people, ...
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, ...
Article 01: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. ...
All of those are just additional things ones wishes democracies to have but are not inherent in the word definition. I can certainly see that some people wish to have the definition of "democracy" expanded to mean many additional things but that really isn't the point of having that very precise word.
What basis do you have to say that? Otherwise, these claims are just bytes with no force behind them. You can see the overwhelming evidence and consensus otherwise, stretching over centuries!
Even more, why do you want it to be true? Why do people want to eliminate their own and others human rights, an incredibly positive basis for society and for your freedom and prosperity, which has resulted in what are by far the most successful societies and people, by many measures, in human history? You're giving away all that for what? To look clever and 'with it'? Smarter than democracy? Very clever.
You should be fighting for it, like your predecessors did. Otherwise, you'll lose it. There are people actively and successfully taking it away, while you are engaging in this philosphical exercise.
Words have a fairly precise dictionary meaning and it's important not to constantly wage a word war where you want to win political and social arguments through word redefinitions. It's information pollution, you redefine words like "love", "equality", "freedom", "democracy" until they mean something completely different and suddenly you have a divided population that can't even talk to each other anymore because all this confusion that you just had over the word "democracy" is only possible because you are misusing the word.
It's not a redefinition. I just showed you definitions centuries old. These things are universally associated with democracy, except by dictators and their supporters who try to redefine them.
Yes, "associated with". But it is not part of the definition of the word. I don't know how much clearer anybody could make this. Democracy just means voting, it does not even mean that everyone gets to vote and certainly not equally. Even if you don't like it and even if you want that to be included in the word definition, that doesn't make it so.
