No understanding or empathy is strictly required by democracy.

Yes, it's required. Democracy is compromise. The people need to be highly intellectual to make their roles in the society balance between what they want and what society (other people) want them to be. Without understanding of difference, everything breaks down easily. See what happened when us bomb other countries with simply unbelievable execuses. You can see that people having no understanding of outside world basically do not afraid to use violence to make their thinking a reality...