The fact that California is nearly ungovernable due to it?

California is perfectly governable. There used to be a perennial budgeting problem due to a supermajority requirement which, like all of the CA Constitution, was directly adopted, but that was solved by the people withdrawing the requirement.

Whether that's a fact or not, it doesn't seem to have much to do with whether lots of Americans support direct democracy. The California process itself is well over a century old.

can you elaborate, please?

> What gives you the impression a significant number of Americans support direct democracy?

The fact that most states have at least some degree of it, and the people don't use it to abolish itself in favor of purely representative democracy.

These all tend to be from the Progressive Era. By the same argument, we can conclude most Americans are deeply paranoid about the dangers of direct democracy because the founders of the US were. Neither is terribly convincing.

Support for this stuff tends to ebb and flow - not surprisingly, depending on whether any particular party or force thinks it can gain advantage from it, or it thwarts its plans.

This can be seen especially well with the Supreme Court, which is arguably the single most undemocratic American institution. In the Progressive Era, SCOTUS was castigated by the left for slowing down the reforms, and eventually adopted the "judicial restraint" stance. Then the Civil Rights era came, with SCOTUS often the driving force - and now it was a good thing that it was forcing the hand of state legislatures regardless of popular support or lack thereof. Similarly, when you look at it from the right, the positions were essentially reversed - under FDR the right expected the courts to fight back against populism, in the Civil Rights era the right expected those same courts to defer to state legislatures.

More recently, in the 90s-10s period, it has been on full display - just take any op-ed with obvious partisan bias about any major Supreme Court decision. If the author agrees with it, they will usually exalt the wonders of an unelected body keeping the mob in check. If the author disagrees, then they will rant about how SCOTUS is undemocratic and thwarts the will of the people. Sometimes, the same author will write several op-eds over time, with varying position depending on the case.

> These all tend to be from the Progressive Era.

And they all contain the mechanisms by which, if people didn't like them, they could be undone.

> By the same argument, we can conclude most Americans are deeply paranoid about the dangers of direct democracy because the founders of the US were.

No, you can't, because to be “by the same argument”, you'd have to. show that, in a case where it was procedurally possible for the people directly to institute or remove direct democracy, they generally choose to avoid it entirely. Which is exactly the opposite of reality.

I don't because I'm not asking what is procedurally possible. I'm asking what is the evidence that right now, piles and piles of Americans support direct democracy. There are zillions of aspects of government that exist and that alone (or the fact that they haven't been reformed away) doesn't indicate widespread support or non-support of them. This is about as weak an indication as the historical arguments which tell you something about how some Americans felt at the time.

> I'm asking what is the evidence that right now, piles and piles of Americans support direct democracy.

And the evidence is that they have it and choose to keep it, since its existence allows them to remove or further limit it should they wish to.

The United States has been on a long bend toward more direct democracy because it’s self reinforcing. How would you “remove” direct democracy? Put it to a “vote of the people”? Okay. Now you have to convince them that they should give up their “power” to directly inform their governance. Who is going to vote for this? As more and more people become accustomed to voting on more and more issues that were previously the exclusive purview of their elected representatives, of course they’re going to want more of that same structure. You get to a point where you’re putting enormously complex issues to a vote, which is just kind of mind boggling to me.

Not sure if we’re agreeing or disagreeing, but to state my position explicitly direct democracy is the final form of decline for civil republican government. After that you’re headed for authoritarianism, be it left or right.

“Should they wish to” is frankly wishful thinking.

> Now you have to convince them that they should give up their “power” to directly inform their governance. Who is going to vote for this?

You so realize that you are literally making my point that direct democracy has significant support?

> “Should they wish to” is frankly wishful thinking.

I think you are confused about the subject: that they manifestly don't wish to is my entire point.

I know I’m making your point. I was trying to. I’m in total agreement that direct democracy is an unstoppable force.

The last sentence I wrote was perhaps me misunderstanding your phrasing. I’m operating from a prior that direct democracy is very bad, and should be avoided.

Rhetorically what I meant was that “should they wish to” is not a meaningful distinction, since they would never wish not to [operate via direct democracy once that Pandora’s box is opened].

Ballot measures, initiatives are an example of this tendency.