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"Democracy" is important to liberals insofar as they want the legitimacy that comes from allegedly representing the populace.
Once they have that they then go about tying the people up in all sorts of ways that actually prevent them expressing their will.
What sort of ways?
Voter protections are still largely left-coded, as far as I know. ID requirements are definitely a right-wing talking point. So were restrictions like poll taxes in the Southern Strategy era.
Representation is more complicated. The popular vote is decidedly left-wing. Approval voting has been proposed by Democrats but not really taken off. Reapportionment is ambiguous: recent cases were split on ideological lines, favoring Republicans but for procedural reasons. Recent legislation has been supported only by Democrats.
What are liberals doing to tie up the populace?
When I say "liberal" I mean it in the sense that both sides of the American political spectrum qualify, not in the sense where it's synonymous with "progressive" (or left-liberal)
They already did it. The structure of the US system allows, for example, judges to invalidate any laws when they've decided they've fabricated a basis for it. Given the current political realities the most obvious way of counteracting this - a Constitutional amendment - is basically impossible so the public has to take the long route to overcoming some of these rulings.
Roe is simply the most notorious example in which even left-liberal legal minds acknowledge issues with the ruling and, more importantly, the populace simply refused to tolerate this novel reading of rights to invalidate the laws of dozens of states and so mobilized for 40 years just to get back to status quo. And, even then, they basically got lucky. A slightly different election and Roe stands.
That sounds like tying up the popular will to me.
If you want an example of this left-coded anti-populism see the Left-Liberals acting like judges returning one of the most consistently controversial issues to state legislators was illegitimate. The federal governments increasing power also gives it levers here; iirc Biden threatened the funding of schools that enacted policies counter to his view of LGBT children's rights . So your school board and governor are onboard? Tough.
But it's not specific to left-liberals. It's a general principle of liberalism itself, with America in particular having a lot of bulwarks against popular enthusiasm.
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