See “Public Choice Theory”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice

Or watch the BBC comedy “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister” to grasp how government (as well as most large companies) actually works.

Yep. Basically, in no election we can practically foresee, is this going to be a politically salient issue. The voters aren't motivated enough about it, and the interest groups involved are mostly aligned on keeping the status quo. Elections put people and parties into power, not individual ideas.

Direct democracy (https://klissarov.eu/en/books/platform-of-the-pp-direct-demo...) can change the status quo - if enough people get up from the couch and do vote for it. It just needs to reach a critical mass - but at the moment people are too lazy and wait for someone else to do the job.

Not when dealers pay politicians to keep it that way.

Even if you ran a petition and forced a state ballot measure, dealers would run a propaganda campaign to make it sound like a pro-Tesla measure.

"they're giving YOUR RIGHTS away to BIG CORPORATIONS. Vote NO on Bill 9928"

when, of course, that very line was funded by large corporations. such is life in Modern America

I think that's true for tech savvy nerds, but my mom loves her dealership. Part of it might be the experience of leasing vs owning, where the dealership often does maintenance for free during the lease.

where the dealership often does maintenance for "free" during the lease

FTFY. She's still paying for it!

It depends. Most jurisdictions allow for a ballot referendum to put measures to a popular vote. This has gotten more difficult with signatory requirements that have gotten larger in most states, mostly orchestrated to keep the dominant parties in power and limit grass roots efforts in general.

Going through existing congressional process means getting at least a champion on board and overcoming dis/misinformation from many insider corporations, often large local donors.

edit: From my understanding,successful campaigns via referendum tend to cost anywhere from $2-20 million usd. Often involving paid signature gathering and local advertising.

The "problem" with referenda is they often forcibly enact policies that the elected politicians, judges, bureaucrats, and other organized political actors don't want. Since these people decide what the government actually does, they often find ways to ignore, work around, or in some cases outright overturn, "settled" referendum results. Making it more difficult to get questions on the ballot outside of the ordinary political process is just streamlining things from their perspective.

Too bad it's a Republic.

“Republic” (any system in which top-level government offices aren't personal property of the officeholder) and “Democracy” (any system in which government serves and is accountable to the general population—usually through voting on candidates and/or specific policies—rather than vice versa) are not mutually exclusive.

It’s pretty common for modern Western governments to be both of (Democratic, often also Federal) Republic and (Representative, sometimes with minor areas of Direct) Democracy.

To put a finer point on it: actual experts in the study of government routinely refer to the US as a democracy. It’s absolutely not a sign of better familiarity with the topic to “correct” that usage—it’s a sign of low side of middling familiarity, specifically.

Debate whatever you want, we do not have a direct democracy, which is what most people hear when they hear "Democracy". It's Representative Democracy. Supposedly.

That isn’t what most people think of when they hear “democracy” in the context of describing countries like the US as a democracy. Lay-usage and expert usage are in accord here. It means more-or-less liberal and with voting that significantly affects how the state runs and/or who runs it. That’s all, and that usage doesn’t confuse anyone. If we didn’t use “democracy” for that we’d just have to come up with something else, because it’s a very useful term to have. But everyone just uses “democracy” and that works great.

It's what a nonzero number of Americans hear.

You're talking to one, who knows others.

Democracy as defined is a goal we have. Not something all (maybe most!) Americans would claim to enjoy.

You mean you thought tejohnso believes the US is a direct democracy, because of that post?

They, like many others, probably have a somewhat fuzzy grasp on what the meaning of word democracy is, due to the way it's used.

Honestly, I can't even think of an alternate(, but still charitable,) interpretation of:

"Shouldn't it be very easy to vote to fix that in a democracy?"

Suggest one, if you can?

Goalposts shift from

> most people

to

> a nonzero number of Americans

Holy motte and bailey, Batman.

Why don't you keep this thread on-topic, and reply to:

> "Shouldn't it be very easy to vote to fix that in a democracy?"

> we do not have a direct democracy, which is what most people hear when they hear "Democracy".

That hasn't been the dominant use of the term for centuries, but, sure, you keep pretending.

No, you're right, we're bringing (federated republics with some vestige elements of) democracy ALL OVER THE WORLD!

It's a federated representative democracy with some issues, some of the components of which have some level of direct democracy.

It is also a republic. It could be a republic even if it was a pure direct democracy somehow without "issues" - in fact I struggle to see how a direct democracy without issues could be something other than a republic.

> some of the components of which have some level of direct democracy.

What, HOAs?

State level initiative and referenda processes.

The percentage of people who want a law to pass is negatively correlated with the chance of it passing.

If voting could change anything it’d be illegal.