Comment by arjie

Well, you can imagine a bunch of scenarios that match the "try repeatedly until it succeeds".

One good case: The original rule was good but had specifics that made it unpopular. Retrying repeatedly is a pathway to refining it into the minimal valuable version that is acceptable to all.

One bad case: The original rule is terrible and progress was stopped only because of public outrage. The assumption of the public is that a groundswell of opposition will cause a fundamental rethinking. However, because such outrage cannot last, repeated attempts will cause fatigue in the public opinion and resignation to pass anything.

If the situation is closer to the front it's "democratic". If it's closer to the back it's "not democratic". One represents a refinement to match the will of the people; the other relies on our human inability to focus tremendous energies continuously on a broad front. Both match a representative democracy repeatedly tabling (haha) a bill.