I think there are a couple ways to look at your question. 1) Most people in this country don't vote (outside of a slim majority in presidential elections) for

I think there are a couple ways to look at your question. 1) Most people in this country don't vote (outside of a slim majority in presidential elections) for a large variety of reasons, but mostly because they know it doesn't change anything for them. The American system was designed as a system of baffles to insulate the elites from the rabble quite explicitly (indirect election of senators, 3/5 compromise, bicameral legislature with senate apportioned by territory instead of people, voting restricted to white male property owners (literally a vote by the elite only), etc), but these days it has developed into an effective democratic illusion in a path dependent fashion. So in other words, I don't think the country is split in this way, but the partisans of the two flavors of the single political party are highly polarized. Neither of them have any concern for workers, note the total lack of economic issues in their agendas and the tomfoolery around 15 $/hr minimum wage. More political participation would right the ship imo. 2) There are cases where votes are split fairly evenly on contentious issues. I'm not sure that private dictatorships are always better on these questions. Sometimes the mad king flip flops constantly, other times a hard line is taken against the will of half the people. It's something that has to be worked out politically and possibly with leadership. In some cases, I do think such things require constitutional remedies (for example, no one should be allowed to vote to re-institute slavery for example). For such close votes, I would shy away from saying the result is "the people's will", but an outcome of process. Votes are one method of measuring the will of the polity. Unfortunately, I don't think there's ever a way to be completely precise as it's possible even for people to change their minds and switch sides on an issue en mass! One example of a vote I would be skeptical of: the way Uber rigged the wording of the recent proposal to recognize its employees as contractors to get out of a court ruling. They made it sound like voting yes was voting no. Votes are really effective ways to do democracy, but I don't think there's any method we can use that allows us to stop thinking critically about it.