Why is democracy good? Or, to put it differently, why is democracy better?

The pandemic reopened and intensified one of the vital debates of the post-post-Cold War era: how much does regime type matter? In an essay at the start of the pandemic, Francis Fukuyama argued that state capacity and trust in government were the crucial determinants, not regime type. This week, President Joe Biden addressed the debate in his speech to Congress, saying "autocrats think that democracy can’t compete in the 21st century with autocracies, because it takes too long to get consensus."