Previous eras of democracy often had some limitations on suffrage, and no round-the-clock media cycle that reached into every household. Under those circumstances, political debate was less sensitive to the loudness of the mob, and more sensitive to longform argument published and read among intellectuals. If you look at nascent American or European democracy, it is remarkable how much its tensions were negotiated by texts that seem emotionally balanced and complex indeed in the modern era of television, radio, and internet.

Well, as opposed to any time when it wasn't dying... because this is exactly how it dies.

Democracy actually works with small causes and stable rules. Not at all with radicalism.

I would expect "classical democracy" to be ancient Greece.

It's a strange redefining of terms. In a discussion about terminological abuse and language control, no less!