The people have no direct voice at the federal level, or choosing members of the fed, so now we are talking about representative democracy, as you mentioned.

In a representative democracy the voters are supposed to choose the representatives, but there is a lot of gerrymandering in the U.S. where instead representatives get to chose the voters in their districts. Also those with the most money tend to win elections, like +95% percent of the time, making it look like lobbyist and the rich elect representatives, not voters. Most other western countries countries call that bribery, and make it illegal.

It should be recognized that the current laws around gerrymandering and campaign finance mean that we may not really have democracy or representative democracy in any true sense of the word. Some would go so far as to say we have a two party oligarchy.

Personally I think using gerrymandering to explain the bulk of our political dysfunction is mistaken. If you were to ask me to give you a simple explanation for the dysfunction and corruption at the federal level, it would be that our federal government is not design to be this big and powerful. Just one example... 50~ years ago the federal government contributed nearly nothing to local and state funding. Today, total federal outlays have ballooned to nearly 20% of all local/state funding(depending on how its counted). Everything has trended to be more centralized.

I believe the best solution going forward is to rip power from the federal government and return it to states and local governments, as was intended by the constitution. Resolving gerrymandering and campaign finance laws will not fix the political dysfunction. It's structural. Most federal institutions are not designed to be democratic.

I wholeheartedly agree! The U.S. federal government was first and foremost designed to be responsive to the states, not the people.

I'm a big fan of Leopold Khor and his book Breakdown of Nations. He talks about how national governments that get too powerful become corrupt authoritarian bullies [0].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaszpQaNwAU

I am aware of that. But even that feature is weak. To judge how democratic an institution is you must look at all features or characteristics of an institution. The appointment of its board of governors isn't the only democratic feature we should care about. The federal reserve has weak accountability, lack of citizen participation, lack of transparency, lack of representation, etc.