Yeah, you're just being ahistorical.

The US didn't vote for apartheid. They were an apartheid regime run by minoritarian patriarchal white supremacists to start with. They were not governed by "the people". Then, the property owning slave owning patriarchal white supremacists seceded from the monarchy and maintained the apartheid regime, the oppression of women, and the genocide of the inhabitants of the land.

NONE of that was democratic. None of that was put to vote. And even if it had been put to vote only the oppressors were allowed to vote.

Demos - the people

The people, the vast majority of people were oppressed and not participants in government.

You can argue semantics and say that because the land owning slave owning patriarchal white supremacists were voting among themselves on the best ways to commit genocide, mass murder, mass rape, mass torture, all for their own minority profits that this was a "democracy". But, that's not what the word means. Democracy isn't voting. Democracy is self-governance of the people by the people.

America has never been that.