Yes, the process is cumbersome and annoying, I won't defend it's efficiency, it's not efficient. But, as with many other things in life, it evolved to be this way.
In parallel, keep this in mind:
Left wing ideas need right wing ideas. They are supposed to keep each other in check.
I would like to believe that the slow process of progress, if any has actually happened lately, is how we filter out bad ideas from good ones, polish out ok ones, and end up with the closest thing we can to a democratic goal.
Otherwise, as you correctly point out, we end up with authoritarian flavored coffee for breakfast.
Now, the thing is, we do have historical precedence for this type of behavior. It's not like this is the first time we are witnessing it.
This is not to say it's going to play out precisely the same, but we do know that's it's never a good idea to play with fire next to dry leaves.