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Yes, it kind of is. The more the average man’s opinion matters to the ruler, the more likely it is that the country is democratic. You get the least democratic norms when a noble horseman can trample on a hundred peasants in battle. Isn’t the main alt-right and alt-left anti-democracy argument that people’s opinion don’t matter, it’s all ‘elites’, ‘lobbies’ , hidden and less hidden power-brokers who decide? Even they agree that this average joe pressure is democratic in nature.
Ok, but that means there are absolute monarchies that are "democractic" and liberal democracies that aren't (and the "liberal" qualifier is important, because Botond already implied it's not really a democracy if it's not liberal enough, but your claim would imply the amount of liberalism is irrelevant). I can imagine a coherent view being extracted from this but I think it would boil down to "democracy" == "rule of the majority", but then I don't see how you can claim there's a tradition of democracy in the west.
I can't speak for everyone, but kinda. It's more that they punch below their weight. And like I said above - I can accept democracy being the will of the majority, but I think it derails the previous arguments more than clarifies them.
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