Democracy is about more than elections. Having a functioning public sphere, justice system, and media are all part of it too. From a Northern European perspective, the US hasn't been a functioning democracy for quite a while now — it's just becoming more and more obvious now that the republicans have stopped even pretending those principles and institutions are important.
The flagrant corruption and voter suppression efforts underway at the moment make the next 2-3 years the final chance to bring it back from the brink. That doesn't just mean a Democrat winning. It means an actual democrat (lowercase) winning and building a coalition to repair what has been broken. I don't personally think that looks very likely, but I hope for all our sakes it can happen.