[flagged]
So you think the 'prime time' for American democracy was not in the past, nor the present, but will eventually happen in the future? Or are you claiming that it died a long, long, time ago, and now is when we really need it, but it wasn't needed before? Is American democracy a 'project'?
Project seems a fitting description of American democracy and the project aspect is part of what makes it American. We the people are working towards that more perfect Union even if at times it does not seem it, the system mostly works but there is no straight line between where we started and that more perfect Union and whatever that more perfect union is, is not a constant. We do get lost along the way, take round about paths, sidestep, go backwards, etc, it is a requirement of the shared aim and sometimes a step backwards is actually a step forward. We can't achieve that more perfect Union, all we can do is keep trying and hope we are more or less going in the correct general direction.
As long as American democracy keeps evolving it is alive and has held up better than one would expect. For at least a century the country has been run by parties that supposedly want to kill American democracy, strangle it with their ideology and defeat the enemies of American democracy which just happen to be their political rivals; we would live in a utopia if it was not for . But they keep failing and the project continues on.