Influence your thoughts and feelings

[Chaerophon]

There are three kinds of constitution, and an equal number of deviation-forms--perversions, as it were, of them. The constitutions are monarchy, aristocracy, and thirdly that which is based on a property qualification, which it seems appropriate to call timocratic, though most people are wont to call it polity. The best of these is monarchy, the worst timocracy. The deviation from monarchy is tyrany; for both are forms of one-man rule, but there is the greatest difference between them; the tyrant looks to his own advantage, the king to that of his subjects. For a man is not a king unless he is sufficient to himself and excels his subjects in all good things; and such a man needs nothing further; therefore he will not look to his own interests but to those of his subjects; for a king who is not like that would be a mere titular king. Now tyranny is the very contrary of this; the tyrant pursues his own good. And it is clearer in the case of tyranny that it is the worst deviation-form; but it is the contrary of the best that is worst. Monarchy passes over into tyranny; for tyranny is the evil form of one-man rule and the bad king becomes a tyrant. Aristocracy passes over into oligarchy by the badness of the rulers, who distribute contrary to equity what belongs to the city-all or most of the good things to themselves, and office always to the same people, paying most regard to wealth; thus the rulers are few and are bad men instead of the most worthy. Timocracy passes over into democracy; for these are coterminous, since it is the ideal even of timocracy to be the rule of the majority, and all who have the property qualification count as equal. Democracy is the least bad of the deviations; for in its case the form of constitution is but a slight deviation. These then are the changes to which constitutions are most subject; for these are the smallest and easiest transitions. [italics mine]

- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, Chapter 10.
Perhaps something in Politics or Athenian Constitution exists that would allow this to be read differently than that Aristotle found democracy to be the best of the worst forms of government, or, as he puts it, the "least bad of the deviations"?
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You need to read The Politics ;) In it, Aristotle comes to the final conclusion that, while the ideal forms are best in ideal conditions, there is a great deal of merit in the safety of forms in which there is a balancing power granted to what he calls the 'middle' kind of person, i.e. in governmental forms in which one or another class/group cannot dominate. Thus, he ultimately supports a more decentralized, less corruptible form of governance. He is still an elitist, but his defense of decentralization and 'protective' forms separates him from Plato's idealist interpretation. While Plato sees the decline of civilization as virtually inevitable through the 'loss of virtue in governance' and the descent through monarchy, aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny (or some such order in book VIII), Aristotle disagrees, arguing that stability and accountable governance can be maintained in 'democratic forms' and that eventual descent is not inevitable. For this reason, while he does state that the Platonic notions of Aristocracy and Monarchy are ideal, he explicitly indicates his preference for 'democratic' forms.