I would say that regulatory capture is the natural outcome of a Republic, due to the fact that the representatives can be persuaded to act against their constituents wills.
A Direct Democracy is now technologically viable, and having people regularly participate in voting on small topics keeps people accountable and also allows more nuanced views where somebody doesn't have to, eg. be anti single-payer-healthcare AND be anti illegal-immigrant at the same time. This reduces deadlocks and we don't get stupid compromise bills with pork spending being passed so that each team gets something they are happy about.
The average person can't sink the time to become knowledgeable on all matters that affect them. Worse yet, the average person is trivially manipulated through mass media. To game the entire system, you just have to gain control of the education sector and grow yourself a generation of placated consumers that do as they're told. And exactly this seems to be happening in many countries right now.
Getting a desired outcome on any given vote by polarising the topic along some axis sounds like something that could be achieved with current generation ML.
A Direct Democracy is now technologically viable, and having people regularly participate in voting on small topics keeps people accountable and also allows more nuanced views where somebody doesn't have to, eg. be anti single-payer-healthcare AND be anti illegal-immigrant at the same time. This reduces deadlocks and we don't get stupid compromise bills with pork spending being passed so that each team gets something they are happy about.