> American democracy is highly unusual in the world.

Indeed it is. That's not necessarily a bad thing. There are other countries that show much better what democracy could look like than what the USA is going through.

> Indians, for example, have figured out mass voting—within a society where people see government as a parental figure—but they don’t have anything resembling the bottom-up participatory democracy of something like the Iowa Caucuses.

Nor do they have gerrymandering. But such singular characteristics are not defining either. Both India, the USA and in fact much of the planet have issues in terms of government, participation and representation. It is however pretty rare to see a nominal democracy turn into an autocracy overnight. Rarer still that this is being cheered on by those that stand the least to gain from the change.

> I think it’s inevitable (and baked in) that democracy in America will degrade to what it is in most third world countries: masses of low information citizens with little sense of ownership and participation voting for daddy government to care for them.

That is one possible outcome. There are many others and quite a few of them a lot worse than that. Currently, based on how things are going we are not on a worldline (to use a popular term) where the outcome that you sketch is inevitable at all.

> But such singular characteristics are not defining either. Both India, the USA and in fact much of the planet have issues in terms of government, participation and representation.

The Iowa Caucuses exemplifies the most important distinguishing characteristic of American democracy. India is a hierarchical society, where low-information masses select who will parent them. America, by contrast, is an egalitarian democracy. That doesn't mean maximizing the participation of the low-information masses. It means that Americans choose from amongst themselves people to represent them within a system of self-government. Americans have this ideal of self-government all the way down, from the President down to elected school boards and HOAs and church leadership.

> There are other countries that show much better what democracy could look like than what the USA is going through.

I'll grant you one thing: American democracy is worse than it was when Reagan was running against Carter, and Trump is part of the reason for that. But the way in which it's worse is that it more resembles Indian third-world slop democracy!