I think you're pointing out a different shade of the same problem. People _do_ technically have representation in the form of their Congresspeople and Senators. But those elected officials have to polarize their viewpoints and thus their votes because when they vote out of party, the vocal members of their parties excoriate them as traitors. So the people in the middle feel like their representatives aren't representing them.

If I wanted, say, single payer insurance, I wouldn't be able to vote for it because my democratic candidate wants to stick to halfassed and broken Obamacare, and the Republican wants to abolish it entirely. I have no meaningful way to exercise that vote, even if this is a majority opinion, and not particularly extreme since it's the status quo in most of the world. Ditto for anything affecting monied interests, since the two presidential candidates are by necessity deep in the pockets of wealthy interest groups right from the beginning of their expensive campaigns.

The only way out I see is through constitution-level campaign finance reform, replacing multilayered first past the post, and probably reducing the power of the presidency so this new many-party Congress actually matters rather than so much power in a single (and thus winner takes all) office.

Edit: as another unrepresented belief, if I think Israel is a geniciding state that deserves no international support, well, too bad, the center of both parties if firmly in the pockets of pro Israeli interest groups.

>People _do_ technically have representation in the form of their Congresspeople and Senators.

Do those people really care and work for their voters? Or for their own career (including post-political career at some company they've done favors), lobbies, party, etc?

Is this actually true for local elections? I would think they care far more about the local teachers union than Mitch McConnell, and certainly the prior would have more boots on the ground canvassing. I think local representatives have to cater to the preferences of their district to a pretty large extent, though not perfectly so (a bit of hysteresis?).

> * what people want does not impact the likelihood of passage of a law*

Not that I follow this closely, but last i heard the Median Voter Theorem was still holding up well in the research.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_voter_theorem

Isn't the core assumption of MVT that there exists a one dimensional spectrum from which to calculate a median in the first place? Voting for candidates is hardly one-dimensional; even a particular ballot measure may have multiple choices, or another question on the ballot of a related but somewhat conflicting nature.

I think the assumption/result is that even though you only get one out of two candidates to choose from and there are hundreds of independent issues, in aggregate, after all forces and processes have had their effect, resulting policy in most major issues is surprisingly close to what the median voter wants.

Caveat: I'm just some guy who reads web pages, not a voting scientist.