Democracy works, the problem is we don’t have a true democracy. We have corporate capitalist democracy. It’s a system that makes most people think it’s democracy — but it’s not.

Democracy and capitalism can not exist in the same stratosphere if democracy is to succeed.

Pointing out the flaws in some democracies is not a great argument when every other system is so clearly inferior. To answer your question, democracy requires a culture that supports it. It won't work everywhere and it doesn't work overnight.

When the dollar can vote you no longer have a democracy.

How do you justify democracy when people are voting for life to be worse instead of better

How are you determining "better" and "worse"? In most cases, there's no way of knowing what is "better" or "worse" sub species aeterinatis, because most government decisions are not optimizing a single parameter, and are instead making a judgement call by choosing one of multiple options from a Pareto frontier. With democracy, the people get what the majority of people want. Majority rule is better than minority rule.

Elections are not democratic because the candidates are always elites of some form. Even with universal sufferage and an egalitarian society there will always be a selection bias towards people who want power and people who are good at winning elections (but not necessarily good at governing). A real democracy would have election by lottery to ensure every segment of the population was represented. This hasn't ever existed because past governments who elected by lottery (e.g. Ancient Athens) had only a small percentage of society represented as citizens.

Let me know when you come up with a way to force people to accept an unpopular system without an authoritarian regime.