The Framers were specifically, clearly, and explicitly against "Democracy." That is why only a small percentage of people were allowed to vote, and they only voted on who would then go on to vote for the rulers. They were focused instead on guarantees of civil rights and local control of local issues.
The original system of electing "electors" who then choose the President was based on the English parliamentary system, but effectively with a different parliament (the Electoral College, a title borrowed from German aristocracy donating a Prince who held a vote towards electing the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire) for choosing the President than for writing laws.
For example on local governance one of the big complaints was that the King would rescind the laws even of his own appointed local Governors, because he didn't want to allow the colony to be well-governed. Important and routine things like local taxes to fund local government were rescinded, leaving the colony in perpetual partial-anarchy, and interfering with the establishment of long-term business ventures. The fight was more about ensuring that local governance is allowed, and is conducted according to understood Rights, than it was about who got to choose the leaders.
Words change, but ideals of Democracy are something that came later, and have not yet succeeded in supplanting the Republic that we have. Many States, such as mine (Oregon), have local Democracy through a Ballot Measure system. At times the State Legislature has passed laws we didn't like, and we have in those cases repealed them. We also write and pass laws directly that the legislature lacks the courage to pass. But at the Federal level there is not even a legal mechanism to hold a direct election, and not a single national direct election has ever been held. But don't be confused; for many supporters of Democracy, that is the eventual goal; to create a national system where we can over-ride individual laws or decisions by the Legislature, and even enact new laws by direct vote. There are many issues that the political parties are 51/49 split on where the People in general are 70/30 on that issue. With actual Democracy we could resolve most of those issues in popular ways.
That the serfs don't even understand the basic terminology certainly adds to the difficulty in promoting those types of changes.