When the Open Society network and its allies say democracy,they never mean popular sovereignty or rule by the consent of the governed. They mean the institutional and street level machinery that produces the policy outcomes they prefer regardless of who wins elections. Historically it tracks the communist use of the term, People's democracies and democratic centralism were never liberal majoritarianism, they were transitional stages toward party directed socialism, where the Party or the responsible elite defined the general good and the masses were expected to ratify or step aside. The Sonja Licht essay in your own 30th anniversary publication states the modern version almost verbatim a courageous elite that cares more about genuine social problems than about election results, to whom voters should cede part of their sovereignty. Funded civil society networks and social movements that apply pressure outside the ballot box like intimidation, disruption, institutional capture. Judiciary, media and regulatory channels that override or pre empt electoral results when they go the wrong way. Labeling any counter majoritarian or anti elite outcome authoritarian or anti democratic, while treating aligned results as self legitimacy. Defending democracy functions as the legitimizing cover for a managed, elite directed political order whose end state looks a lot like communism with concentrated power justified by abstract social goals, enforced through non electoral pressure, and insulated from voter correction. That's the through line from the 20th century people's democracies to the current our democracy formulation.