[tzs]

All you need to do is go look at the discussion on Reddit in /r/politics, a place full of people who make some effort to be more informed than the average citizen, on the NDAA bill to see how colossally bad your idea is.

There have been several revisions of the bill, in particular of the 3 controversial sections. The majority of people in any given discussion are not discussing the current version. If there concerns are addressed in the current version, and you try to tell them that, you run a good chance of getting voted way down, because they saw some article by someone famous that said the bill was bad and they can't seem to grasp the concept that the article was written about an older version of the bill.

Congress deals with many deep and complicated issues. It is simply not possible for most citizens to competently decide how to vote on most bills. They have neither the background nor the time.

Under your system it would basically come down to a popularity contest among the proponents and opponents of a particular bill. People would simply look at who is for and against it, and go with which group fits in better with them. E.g., if Rush Limbaugh says it is bad, you'd have a large group of Limbaugh fans voting against it with no further analysis. If Glen Greenwald says it is good, a bunch of his fans will vote for it with no further analysis.

Advertising would also play a large amount in determining the outcome. You can already see this in states that allow initiatives to create legislation directly, bypassing the legislature. The outcome of initiatives if often heavily influenced by whether or not one side can significantly outspend the other on advertising.

[nitrogen]

Congress deals with many deep and complicated issues. It is simply not possible for most citizens to competently decide how to vote on most bills. They have neither the background nor the time.

It sounds like you're describing exactly what we have now, only without abstracted accountability through representatives. Sure, most citizens cannot competently decide how to vote on most bills, but clearly many congresspeople can't either. That's not only a problem of competence, but also of the unnecessary complexity of legislation. Using something like unified diffs alone would reduce the length of many bills significantly.

Under your system it would basically come down to a popularity contest among the proponents and opponents of a particular bill. People would simply look at who is for and against it, and go with which group fits in better with them.

Citizens and their representatives already do that now. People look to their party to decide how to vote, and representatives look to the lobbyists with the most persuasive voice. It's easy to appear persuasive when your entire industry is built around convincing people to watch your advertisements.

Advertising would also play a large amount in determining the outcome.

It already does, and not just in initiatives. Direct democracy is not a panacea, but it would remove one of the significant roadblocks to addressing the problem of corruption and undue influence in politics.