You call it an excuse, I call it a valid reason. The current administration is a perfect example of what happens when you let people with no qualifications make decisions that impact the entire country. The current administration if failing in large party because it isn't acting according the norms and structures of the current system, and they are encouraging "independent thinkers" to question whether the virus is even real. It's a terrible example if you are looking to say that our representative democracy doesn't work. Pandemic response was top notch under the previous administration - turns out hiring experts and letting them do their work is effective.

> Examples please? What country/government has ever implemented a real/direct democracy?

That's my point. The French revolutionaries tried it for a minute until they realized you can't run a nation-state that way - it's too complex and the average person is too disconnected from the issues to fully grok the n-th order consequences. Plus the tyranny of the masses tends to get out of hand.

> The current administration is a perfect example of what happens when you let people with no qualifications make decisions that impact the entire country. The current administration if failing in large party because it isn't acting according the norms and structures of the current system, and they are encouraging "independent thinkers" to question whether the virus is even real. It's a terrible example if you are looking to say that our representative democracy doesn't work. Pandemic response was top notch under the previous administration - turns out hiring experts and letting them do their work is effective.

The current administration is a product of the current system. And it is a great example of what's wrong with it. It's amazing that you are using it to defend the system instead.

> The French revolutionaries tried it for a minute until they realized you can't run a nation-state that way - it's too complex and the average person is too disconnected from the issues to fully grok the n-th order consequences. Plus the tyranny of the masses tends to get out of hand.

Technology and data should help tremendously in solving the issues you present. Tools which were not available to the French revolutionaries. Also you shouldn't throw something completely out the window just because of one failed attempt hundreds of years ago.

> The current administration is a product of the current system. And it is a great example of what's wrong with it. It's amazing that you are using it to defend the system instead.

It's the worst system, except for all the others that have been tried. Not making rash decisions off black swan events is another reason to avoid direct democracy.

> Technology and data should help tremendously in solving the issues you present. Tools which were not available to the French revolutionaries. Also you shouldn't throw something completely out the window just because of one failed attempt hundreds of years ago.

Adding technology and data make the process even more fragile and prone to being messed with. How are you going to bash the existing government, and then act like we're somehow going to create a direct democracy based on technology that's fully secure and consistent? What happens when a hurricane knocks out power in Florida? Are they just paralyzed because no one can do their daily voting?

Voting systems should use the minimal amount of technology and the maximum amount of privacy. That doesn't even get into how most people wouldn't want the cognitive burden you are trying to impose on them.