Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels present an abundance of evidence that there is no popular will. The public does not understand the issues. The voters do not know what they want. Achen and Bartels also make the interesting argument that when there is more than one issue (more than one dimension) it becomes difficult to build a 51% coalition that also has 51% support on every issue, and where there are, say, 100 issues, it becomes almost mathematically impossible to build a 51% coalition that also holds the popular position on every issue. Put differently, to win elections, politicians must advocate for some deeply unpopular issues. This is the most important thing to understand if we are going to understand "Why elections do not bring about responsive government." (the subtitle of the book).
On the other issue, that the public is ignorant of most issues, remains a real concern.
If one takes that seriously, the solution is to abandon elections and the pretense of democracy entirely.
Arend Lijphart, on the other hand, has shown that there is a public will, people do know what they want, and that democratic systems with greater electoral proportionality deliver it to them better and make them happier with government.
That does not follow at all. The benefits of democracy have been well-documented -- as well documented as the fact that the voters don't understand the issues and do not know what they want. The evidence on both points is overwhelming. Those facts are not in contradiction to each other, rather, it is clear that the benefits of democracy do not come from the voters. The benefits must come from somewhere else:
https://demodexio.substack.com/p/democracy-for-realists-part...
Sure, but long terms make the democratically elected representatives are less representative of the public will because of lack of immediate accountability.
What would be better is current terms, absence of term limits, and candidate-centered proportional—e.g., by single transferrable vote (STV)—elections in multimember districts (say, up to 5 member districts for the House, two-member for the Senate by putting those from the same state in the same class and electing them together), so that typically there is some choice at the general election within parties (e.g., a party with an incumbent but not all the seats available would usually be incentivized to run at least one more candidate to contest for a potential additional seat) and more viable parties, so that you have both accountability and representatives that are durable in office if they retain popular support.
> If every Senator was elected for 15 years, we would get better government.
If every Senator was elected for 15 years, we get government even more detached from the popular will, both legislatively, executively (because of the Senates veto of top executive appointments), and in judicial selection.
And the reduced accountability would supercharge corruption, too.