[Nevermark]

They have councils and parties, classic institutions of centralization and decision delegation. The people in those organizations, especially the leaders, have tremendous outsized power to decide and frame what issues and candidates are exposed to votes by the democracy as a whole. And of course, in the best position to maintain their own positions or set up their successors chances.

So no - they are not a direct democracy. For the unavoidable reasons I gave.

However yes, they are doing a fantastic and inspiring job of maintaining as much directness as possible. And at keeping the centralized and indirect processes formalized, open and accountable.

Vs. the US, where even the president isn't elected directly; lower offices are heavily controlled by whoever draws district maps, often the incumbents; only two parties have much power, and conspire together to maintain that - reducing citizen choices to only two preset menus of policies & governance styles; parties enforce litmus tests on their own candidates at all levels of office, vastly increasing party leadership power at the expense of eliminating 99% of potential alternative views. The result of all this power hoarding are many laws in significant opposition to majority views, and an institutionalization of two way service and influence with the rich. The highest court nomination process and members of the highest court have become aggressively politicized and brazenly unethical. Overall, the US system has become increasingly dysfunctional, corrupt, divisive and dystopian.

Switzerland is amazing.