You know what happens when a ruler's legitimacy is widely questioned. See the legitimacy question as separate from the question whether the ruler is popular or

You know what happens when a ruler's legitimacy is widely questioned. See the legitimacy question as separate from the question whether the ruler is popular or good. In the past armies have been raised against perfectly fine rulers whose legitimacy was questioned, and armies have been raised in defense of horrible tyrants whose legitimacy was not in doubt. My enthusiasm for representative democracy is that it has largely done away with these internal conflicts, without a need for repression. The vices of voting that you mention are more an artifact of a first past the post, two party system: over time, any idea that has a plurality will get all of the influence. Any idea that never has a plurality will never have any influence. In a system with proportional representation and a tradition of coalitions, over time, an idea that has 20% of the vote will gravitate towards about 20% of the influence. With many parties to choose from, the choice for your educational platform may not be automatically bundled with a choice for a foreign policy.