Just to clarify, I do not live in the US and never been there, so my opinions on this matter may not really be representative of the situation at all. However my parents did grow up under a socialist totalitarian regime in eastern Europe and I myself grew up in many countries in Africa and Asia, so I am quite familiar with other systems around the world.

My point is, however, that it is quite ridiculous to say you are defending a system, which allowed such things to occur in such an obscure manner in the first place. Also, if you look at the US now, you can see there aren't that many options for civil engagement as it would seem.

First of all, if you look at the current election (and many of the recent elections), you can see that the way the President was elected was not representative of the country at all. There was a a 58% turnout, Hillary got over a million more votes than Trump and it was all under the electoral college system, which hugely overemphasizes some regions. So you can see that Trump was not elected by the people, but rather by an obscure system not much different from chance.

Furthermore the US political system is flawed in a tremendous number of ways. 6 corporations own all the media in the country. The effect that lobbying has on congress is incredible. Congressmen spend more time calling for money, than working on legislation. Congress is elected with the first past post system. And finally, having a nationwide referendum in order to implement a law is not possible.

Of course the US respects all human rights, which is still not happening in some countries, but Americans seem to fixated on the way their democracy works and trying to defending it, without really looking at the flaws and maybe the reason Trump was elected in the first place.

I really don't see how the current state of US democracy or any representative democracy is worth defending.