Most of what you hear in western media about how the DPRK functions is outright lies, you literally can't take any of that at face value.

What you need to understand is that, for the crime of attempting to build socialism, the United States dropped more bombs on the DPRK than were dropped throughout the entire second world war, destroying every standing structure over two stories tall and murdering a double digit percentage of their population. Then the US occupation of the southern half of the peninsula never ended, there was never a peace treaty. This resulted in the highly militarized border and tensions with the south. The United States is still technically at war with the DPRK to this day.

Then the UN and the United States imposed devastating sanctions on the country to halt its recovery from the war. Those sanctions are actually what prevent North Koreans from being able to visit most countries, not any sort of internal DPRK law.

After the USSR collapsed, the DPRK was completely cut off from global trade. By way of sanctions the United States attempted to literally starve out the entire country all the while putting out atrocity propaganda to smear socialism and provoke regime change.

To the extent that you can say life in the DPRK is subpar, you can lay the blame squarely on the feet of the United States and its vassals, not authoritarianism or any sort of bullshit you've been hearing about them in the news your entire life.

America literally carved their founding father's faces into the side of a mountain. And one of those men (Thomas Jefferson) is a literal, documented pedophile. So you can miss me with the "they worship their leader like a god" bullshit.

The DPRK's system is not particularly different to China's system. Both were inherited from the Soviet Union and have since been modified in different directions by those states.

The positions the Kims have held are an elected position and at any time that their congress sees fit to change that, they can. Why then does the DPRK continue to elect the Kims to that role? Cultural reasons, it's become an unchanging pillar that people consider to be an important point of stability for their state. They don't want to change that pillar because they don't want to introduce potential instability to their state at a time when literally the entire world has been sanctioning them thanks to the US.

This will sound strange from the american perspective, but I'm from the UK and very much understand what it's like to live in a culture where people support a royal family and don't want to get rid of it. I'm not saying that the Kims are a royal family but that the culture of support they have staying in that role for state stability and the historic link to their revolution is culturally comparable to the people who have supported the British monarchy because "it's always there" and "it's important" and "it keeps us stable".

Importantly, there is a mechanism for them to change this at any time the DPRK feels it wants to, they can simply elect someone else to that role. Realistically I do not think this is not going to happen until a softening of relations with the rest of the world. This isn't going to happen until the US completely falls from grace.

I think you should look more into the DPRK's democratic system. The Kim family has a large role in politics, but this isn't something hereditary. From Professor Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance:

The DPRK’s electoral democracy relates primarily to the people’s assemblies, along with local state organs, assemblies, and committees. Every eligible citizen may stand for election, so much so that independent candidates are regularly elected to the people’s assemblies and may even be elected to be the speaker or chair. The history of the DPRK has many such examples. I think here of Ryu Mi Yong (1921–2016), who moved from south to north in 1986 so as to take up her role as chair of the Chondoist Chongu Party (The Party of the Young Friends of the Heavenly Way, formed in 1946). She was elected to the Supreme People’s Assembly and became a member of the Standing Committee (then called the Presidium). Other examples include Gang Ryang Uk, a Presbyterian minister who was a leader of the Korean Christian Federation (a Protestant organisation) and served as vice president of the DPRK from 1972 until his death in 1982, as well as Kim Chang Jun, who was an ordained Methodist minister and became vice-chair of the Supreme People’s Assembly (Ryu 2006, 673). Both Gang and Kim were buried at the Patriots’ Cemetery.

How do elections to all of the various bodies of governance work? Elections are universal and use secret ballots, and are—notably—direct. To my knowledge, the DPRK is the only socialist country that has implemented direct elections at all levels. Neither the Soviet Union (in its time) nor China have embraced a complete system of direct elections, preferring—and here I speak of China—to have direct elections at the lower levels of the people’s congresses, and indirect elections to the higher levels. As for candidates, it may initially seem as though the DPRK follows the Soviet Union’s approach in having a single candidate for each elected position. This is indeed the case for the final process of voting, but there is also a distinct difference: candidates are selected through a robust process in the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland. As mentioned earlier, the struggle against Japanese imperialism and liberation of the whole peninsula drew together many organisations, and it is these that came to form the later Democratic Front. The Front was formed on 25 July, 1949 (Kim Il Sung 1949), and today includes the three political parties, and a range of mass organisations from the unions, youth, women, children, agricultural workers, journalism, literature and arts, and Koreans in Japan (Chongryon). Notably, it also includes representation from the Korean Christian Federation (Protestant), Korean Catholic Federation, and the Korean Buddhist Federation. All of these mass organisations make up the Democratic Front, and it is this organisation that proposes candidates. In many respects, this is where the multi-candidate dimension of elections comes to the fore. Here candidates are nominated for consideration from all of the mass organisations represented. Their suitability and merit for the potential nomination is debated and discussed at many mass meetings, and only then is the final candidate nominated for elections to the SPA. Now we can see why candidates from the Chondoist movement, as well as from the Christian churches, have been and can be elected to the SPA and indeed the local assemblies.

To sum up the electoral process, we may see it in terms of a dialectical both-and: multi-candidate elections take place in the Democratic Front, which engages in extensive consideration of suitable candidates; single candidate elections take place for the people’s assemblies. It goes without saying that in a non-antagonistic system of class and group interaction, the criterion for election is merit and political suitability

As for the bodies of governance, there is a similar continuity and discontinuity compared with other socialist countries. Unlike the Soviet Union, there is a unicameral Supreme People’s Assembly, which is the highest authority in terms of laws, regulations, the constitution, and all leadership roles. The SPA is also responsible for the national economic plan, the country’s budget, and foreign policy directions (Han 2016, 47–48). At the same time, the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland has an analogous function to a second organ of governance. This is a uniquely Korean approach to the question of a second organ of governance. While not an organ of governance as such, it plays a direct role in electoral democracy (see above), as well as the all-important manifestation of consultative democracy (see below). A further reason for this unique role of the Democratic Front may be adduced: while the Soviet Union and China see the second body or organ as representative of all minority nationalities and relevant groups, the absence of minority nationalities in a much smaller Korea means that such a form of representation is not needed.

I highly recommend the book, it helps shed light on some often misunderstood mechanisms in socialist democracy, including the directly addressed fact that the DPRK's voting process includes single candidate approval voting. Without the context of the candidate selection process, this is spun as entirely anti-democratic.

There's a "worship culture" akin to how the US Empire views the founding fathers, except the DPRK is far younger as a country and not actually far removed from its founding. It's not religious, it's a matter of deep respect. Imagine if Lenin had survived, and directly trained his children to be successors. The soviets likely would have elected such a successor, of their own volition.