What to do when your country is supposed to be a democracy but it feels rigged

You always have some lever of power available to you, the trick is to identify it and then get to work.

To change the system of voting, and therefore the type of democracy you have, there is always some level that you can start working at today. You simply have to identify that level.

In most democracies, that level is with the parties themselves. As the internal politics of parties are a speciality that few get involved in, this is an area where a militant few can make a large difference. I keep raising the point, how is it that the CDU, in Germany, was founded by pro-life Catholics, and dominated by pro-life Catholics, yet they took the lead in legalizing abortion in Germany? That's because the CDU has a women's committee that was taken over by some determined women, and they made the pro-abortion position the official position of the CDU even though most members of the CDU were opposed to it, and the laws were passed as soon as the CDU regain power. See Control Of A Political Party Entails Engagement With The Guts Of Its Committee System.

In the USA, things are different. The political parties were largely abolished in the 1970s with the spread of the primary system, leaving the parties too weak to function as sites of citizen mobilization. But in the USA, the local and state governments offer sites of mobilization. In particular, the style of voting, even in national elections, is decided on the state level, so getting involved there can have a big impact. In particular, changing the voting in a state to Ranked Choice Voting makes it much easier for 3rd parties to compete, and thus break the duopoly of the Democrats and the Republicans. Although the transformation is slow, Ranked Choice Voting is spreading in the USA:

At the federal and state level, RCV is used for congressional and presidential elections in Maine; state, congressional, and presidential general elections in Alaska; and special congressional elections in Hawaii.

As of February 2024, RCV is used for local elections in 45 US cities including Salt Lake City and Seattle. It has also been used by some state political parties in party-run primaries and nominating conventions. As a contingency in the case of a runoff election, RCV ballots are used by overseas voters in six states.

In authoritarian regimes, such as what we saw in South Korea or Taiwan or Singapore 30 or 40 years ago, you have to first build large organizations outside of the government, and in particular you have to build labor unions. The labor unions can then go on strike and cripple the economy to force the government to become more democratic. It’s a slow process, but at this point South Korea and Taiwan are vibrant democracies, and even Singapore is very close to being a real democracy.

But whatever nation you are in (maybe aside from the worst totalitarian regimes), you always have some lever of power available to you, you only need to identify it and then get to work.