If you are a citizen and have not been disenfranchised, and I grant you that many fall outside of these buckets, you absolutely have a say. That say is that you can elect whomever you want to decide these things for you. It is the central mechanism in a representative democracy.
Re representative democracies, why are opinions on disparate issues like the economy, abortion, climate change, etc. all packaged into one party? At least 99% of people won't find a party that agrees with them on every single issue, so it feels like there should be a better system.
Because the US has first past the post. Sure you could vote for someone who matches every single one of your ideologies, but the chance that they win is zero.
I'm not sure you are attacking representative democracy, but instead are attacking the US two party system. I'm def not going to argue against you on that. Just wanted to say that in a representative democracy, one does have a say in policy. I do very much agree that the US tries to give us all as little of a say as possible, as the "adults" (read: billionaires) decide things for us
Unfortunately, in the US, we've allowed our representatives to enact a hard cap on the number of representatives. So the representative you elect decides these thing for an increasingly larger number of citizens as population increases. So while you have a say, the weight of that say on choosing a representative is ever decreasing.
Gerrymander strategy dictates that you want as few urban districts as possible to maintain rural power. Raising the caps would weaken the benefit of packing opposition voters into fewer districts.
Yes removing the limit put on in the early 20th century would have broad ranging consequences, most of them would be to the detrement of the existing representatives.
...and then the person we voted for doesn't win the election and the person who does win the election doesn't listen to the citizens they're supposed to represent.
