The oposite opinion can also be argued, that now politicians are a lot more connected to the populace, and that the will of the people is now represented much better than it was in the past.
How does a politician become "more connected" to the populace if said populace is only encountered as an integral function of a wider statistically significant effect?
"Dear Candidate, you will have to see people in that part of the country, not because you care, but because our data has shown that a similar visit before was statistically significant enough to matter."
On top of that, this data-driven approach actively undermines any connection by reducing it to a functional one. There isn't even the pretence anymore that the candidate cares for the given group due to intrinsic values or some sort of connection other than statistics.
> "Dear Candidate, you will have to see people in that part of the country, not because you care, but because our data has shown that a similar visit before was statistically significant enough to matter."
When has a candidate ever campaigned in a place for any other reason other than an attempt to snag votes? The advent of computer-driven data didn't suddenly steal the innocence out of campaigning.
Let's take it to the logical extreme. Say the candidate did exactly what the statistics said to do on every issue and that they had no vision or leadership whatsoever. That candidate would be the closest a representative could get to the will of the people. It would also be the closest a representative democracy could get to being a direct democracy.
While I can appreciate there is value to having figureheads around, it's hard for me to look at a system approaching direct democracy and feel that it is worse.
Since when is direct democracy completely void of any form of value? Following your "extreme", then, means that every election means simply projecting all your private hopes onto someone completely void of any coherency, other than that projected onto them.
Statistics reflect groups already present or in the process of development, which formed due to previous work (be it a former presidency or the opposition thereof). Giving statistics free reign does not approach direct democracy, because it merely manifests what was already there, or -- if you want to be more dystopian -- they will create through their own precriptions what they define (→ theory effect).
The whole point of holding elections is to find a
compromise that works for the majority -- if not most -- of the people, and for that you need a program that then creates groups. If you however campaign solely based on the already existant groups, you will cement the already existing groups (and schisms) without the chance to actually initialise any new group formation processes.
I don't understand direct democracy as a system where the candidate serves merely as an empty canvas on which every individual voter (or group of voters) can project their preconceived opinions without even having to engage in any form of idea-led political discourse.
Under direct democracy, there wouldn't be a candidate at all--the citizens propose and vote on every issue themselves, instead of electing a representative to do it for them. It's been done before, and the principle argument against it is that it doesn't scale (thus representative democracy).
"Merely manifesting what was already there" is exactly the point of democracy: the majority rules as opposed to some superior-minded entity. Your argument seems to be that representative democracy is better than direct democracy because compromise wouldn't exist without representatives or people wouldn't factionize without them. I find those claims dubious, but we're all entitled to our opinion.
What I think lies beneath your argument is a form of the old classical AI versus statistic AI debate. The classical side asserts that there's not much scientific value in statistical techniques because they don't increase our understanding. The statistical side emphasizes pragmatics and has the best results. Interestingly, even if your side were right, it's going to be (and is already, evidently) steamrolled by the other side simply because they have the results. It doesn't seem impossible to me that there could be something valuable about sharing values with candidates, but the candidate that employed the statistical method better won. As long as that remains the case--in other words, until voters vote based on actual values rather than statistically determined hot-button issues--it's a moot point.
It seems to me that the whole point of having elected leaders instead of making every choice a referendum is to modulate the will of the people, instead of following it blindly.
Correction: the will of those who are financially able to represent themselves in front of politicians. Presidents and leaders don't have time to understand their populace on their own accord these days.
