I guess almost nobody wants to 'remove democracy' even in the least democratic places.

A more plausible explanation here would be indifference. Maybe they don't want to remove democracy, but not exactly trying to uphold it over everything else either.

Maybe seeing your cult of personality hero in office, or your religion or your flavour of boogieman (=not losing the country to commies kind of thinking) has ultimately higher priority than keeping the democracy alive.

I'm not saying that's what is happening, I'm just saying I can see how masses can smother democracy without specifically having the intention to kill it.

disclaimer: non-US, my opinion on anything US would be at best inaccurate.

It's more of the half of the 47% who are in the cult of personality. I don't think they were against democracy so much as for Trump (but it does go to show how little some folks care about democracy when they are losing).