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Our society does not work on democratic principles. It is possible to impose a view of righteousness while being in the minority, and when that view is expressed people will sanewash it rather than push back.
I mean, I'd go further - I think it's completely normal for minorities to impose their righteousness on everyone else, who just basically goes along with it. What I'm mixed up about is the difference between "whose righteousness can be expressed" and "a contest over the definition of righteousness." Isn't "whose righteousness can be expressed" just the current winner of the "contest over the definition of righteousness?"
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It is also possible to impose a view of righteousness while being in the minority in a system that does work on democratic principles. For example, a better coordinated group focusing all their power on a single topic would be able to make a dent in that dimension of the Overton window, even if they have less overall power and less overall influence on the change vector over all dimensions of the Overton window.
Likely your actual object level beliefs better support your point- I'm just reading the implication of a very strange definition of democratic principles from your phrasing.
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