In light of recent Supreme Court decisions, such as the one today and Citizen's United, things have evolved to the point where popular vote doesn't create governing bodies that represent the people. Maybe it never did. Popular election elects people who win a popularity contest and, these days, that means people with money for media. Popular elections still may be the best thing we have as in saying, "democracy is a terrible idea, but all the other options are worse."
On the other hand, there could be merit to some other options besides popular vote; like random lottery for selecting members of a representative body. A random lottery would be better at selecting a representative cross section of the people than popular vote. A random lottery would select people from every walk of life including janitors, the disabled, scientists, teachers, farmers and whatever. Not necessarily just people who can manipulate media for name recognition.
Going viral on the internet, even without having money, is one counterweight to money that still exists in popular democracies, but that factor may not be enough. Maybe at least one body of our legislative branch could be selected by some kind of random lottery if we totally redesigned the system.
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