The scary fun part about representative democracy is that all of that can change rapidly, and not necessarily in the direction one would want for any given situation. "Throw the bums out" might scare some politicians into slightly better behavior but most just throw more donor money at the problem and it goes away. If not, often an even worse "bum" ends up taking their place. Of course, with the right model behind them, the bums might find a way to manipulate the public consensus enough to never get thrown out.