[bluecalm]

Imo the biggest problem in Western democracies is that in a lot of ideological cases we don't have democracy at all. It doesn't matter what majority thinks as no major party is going to implement it.

I get why democracy has to be indirect when it comes to many complicated, interconnected issues but things like free speech laws, abortion laws, public decency laws, smoking bans etc. should all be decided in a direct vote (repeated every N years). As it is we often have a situation where significant majority have a different view but a small strong group is able to influence the law. It's not a democracy but a farce in my view.

[ethbr1]

Some, mostly-western, US states have citizen-initiated state constitution amendment processes. [0]

I especially like Nevada's -- a majority in two successive general elections.

Sustainable democracy needs a jury nullification-like direct popular escape catch to solve legislatively-intractable issues (term limits, party primaries, redistricting, etc).

[0] https://ballotpedia.org/Initiated_constitutional_amendment