But all this was done without public demand or support, and was done in a way that was abrupt, complete, unstoppable.

This. This is exactly what objections to the ballroom get wrong.

There is a difference between someone making a decision they're not allowed to make, and someone making a bad choice.

Advocates sometimes act as though there always has to be a way to stop an elected official if they're making a bad choice. That there has to be some process to overrule that choice and get to the "right" choice. That a decision can't be "unstoppable," that the action can't legitimately be taken unless it's the right choice that the public wants or supports.

There are ways to describe a government like that....but "democratic" isn't one of them.

In a democracy, choices get to be made by the majority. In a representative democracy, the leaders get chosen by the majority, and they get to make the choices. And they get to make the choices, even if the choices are odious to the minority. Even if the choices are odious to the majority. Even if the choices are objectively bad. You don't have a 'referee' that you have overrule the elected officials if they make a bad choice (as opposed to an illegal one). Democracy means we make choices based on majority rule, and when elected officials make choices within their authority to make those choices have legitimacy even if the choices are "without public demand or support" or even objectively bad.

This is, I think, why progressivism is having a hard time right now. Progressive reforms have created a gantlet of reviews, checks and balances, public participation and veto points to try to prevent government from making bad decisions - but because that morass applies to everything government does, it makes it almost impossible for government to make any big decisions in a timely or efficient way. But progressives, unlike most classic conservatives, want government to play an important, active, and timely role in society.

Which is why I think it's a losing proposition for Democrats to keep labelling as "authoritarian" instances where an elected person makes a decision that isn't subject to an unending series of checks, reviews, and restrictions. Because it makes it seem like they want choices to be made primarily by anyone other than the folks that actually win elections - by experts, by professionals, by "community leaders" or "stakeholders," by courts....or that the choice isn't one that government ever gets to make at all. And again, that isn't very democratic (small-d).