To be honest, I struggle to see how most countries aren't more democratic than the US. The two-party state ensures that the same very small clique of people, often even the very same bloodline, maintain dictatorial political power. The vast majority of voters don't have the option of voting for anything even remotely aligning with their desires, hence why most don't at all. Meanwhile the house and senate just play silly buggers with peoples' lives for the spectacle and illusion of doing anything, occasionally throwing the odd breadcrumb at most. It's closer to a monarchy than a republic.

Both Lenin and Marx noted these fundamental issues over a century ago, and especially in the US' and UK's cases, nothing has ever been done to address them. That doesn't sound like the barest minimum kind of a free democracy to me.