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Electoral politics can solve things. It's not the problem. The problem is it requires an educated populace. That's where we're fucked up. The majority of people are fed misinformation or just simply don't care and just vote party line.
Honestly if we had a short multi-choice questionnaire before the ballot. Testing voters knowledge about relevant and contemporary facts surrounding the candidates and the parties. Weighting their vote by their score. It would probably go a long way. Though problematically then we start approaching things like a poll tax again.
In the long term the ignorance hurts us all. But it will pad the returns for next quarter. And that's all they care about.
How will an educated populace help when someone can say "I'm a progressive" during elections and then say "I never said I was a progressive" when in office? And for six years the asshole gets to do shit until the next time at which point he has a huge advantage to win a primary - assuming there is one - and the alternative is even worse?
Critical thinking skills. Is X equal to Y simply because someone has told you it is. Or do you take reasonable steps to verify for yourself. Or to look for someone reputable who has verified. That's the largest problem we have right now. People are simply believing what they're told and not questioning it. Because we do not train people to question and verify.
Fuck me for trusting someone running for office, right? I should just assume they're going to be assholes and then not vote for any of them.
Is it fair to say it is a problem with representative democracy?
We elect people to represent individuals with their own opinions. If those representatives jump ship to support other opinions, they aren't representing those who voted for them anymore. But it strikes me as near impossible to police. If you elect representatives, they always have their own autonomy. And if we float the idea of restricting that autonomy, we may as well be exploring options to not use representatives.
That sounds good to me