Traditionally, democracy meant 'all Athenian male unenslaved citizens meet up every now and then to decide by majority whom to banish from the city' -> the exact reason why democracy was a dirty word for classical political philosophers, like Plato: tyranny of the masses was built in from the start.
What you describe was an "age of enlightenment"-style idealised version of democracy that lived for a short time before it was being killed again, bit by bit.
And that direct democracy thing ... it works for the Swiss, and many would argue the problem today is not too much democracy, but too little, and it becoming ever-smaller.
Democracy was discussed deeply and implanted varyingly after Athens fell. And even then, concepts of free and equal speech were tied to the concept.
> that direct democracy thing ... it works for the Swiss
We don’t have direct democracy. Our initiative and amendment processes have a referendum component, but it’s tightly moderated by the legislature and requires supermajorities to override it. And to the degree it's being discussed, it's with respect to reforming it so political parties can't bypass the parliament.
I tried not to become too technical, given the original claim was that direct democracy does not ever work. You are, of course, right: You have a representative parliamentary system with strong direct democratic elements, which currently is in danger of being destroyed by more conservative elements in your parliamentary system. Given that traditionally Switzerland used these mandates wisely, I hope the fascistoid elements in your government will not be able to go through with that plan.
The problem is direct democracy is everyone needs to show up at the same time. It is impossible to do this for any modern community of more than 100 people and even going that large is only possible if you limit who has a vote to [white adult males] or some such subgroup that allows someone else (women and children in this example) to take care of everything else that can't be ignored while in the meeting. Once you get larger than that someone has a conflict and they won't be able to show up, and now they have no input.
Direct democracy does not necessitate a 100% participation rate.
It traditionally only means "the electorate decides on topics directly, not with representatives who are not bound in their decisions to their mandate". Again, see Switzerland, which works just fine with direct democratic elections with groups ranging from a few hundred voters on a market square to millions of electors in the country as a whole.
If you have less than 100% participation though there is risk that the needs of those who cannot participate (here referring those who would like to, as oppose to those who wouldn't even) are overridden by those who do.
What you describe was an "age of enlightenment"-style idealised version of democracy that lived for a short time before it was being killed again, bit by bit.
And that direct democracy thing ... it works for the Swiss, and many would argue the problem today is not too much democracy, but too little, and it becoming ever-smaller.