What does the public mean? The numerical majority? The loudest segment? Policy pushed by the former could have a negative impact on minority groups, and policy

What does the public mean? The numerical majority? The loudest segment? Policy pushed by the former could have a negative impact on minority groups, and policy pushed by the latter can be acerbic in general. Except thaumasiotes argument is that we know what the public wants, but they shouldn't get it, because they don't know what's good for them. How to determine what the people want, and how we should structure a government to represent and implement that, is a topic we can debate endlessly. But once we have determined the will of the people (however we define that), to then say that we should disregard it because the people can't be trusted to know what's good for them, is fundamentally at odds with the entire idea of representative government in general, and American government specifically.