Earlier quoted context omitted.
This post is well written, sourced, and highlights some of the tricky issues involved. Why is this post down voted?
[flagged]
The republic versus democracy point is relevant here for a practical reason, not an ideological one. In a direct democracy, citizens can vote on each issue independently of the others. In a republic, they have to pick representatives that don’t necessarily have the exact same mix of preferences, and those representatives are organized into parties. That produces compromises that don’t need to happen in a direct democracy. For example, a major cleavage line in American politics is race. That splits the working class vote between Democrats and Republicans. And it also splits the religious conservative vote. For example, likely voters support the Hyde Amendment (which bans federal funding of abortions) by a 20-point margin: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/joe-biden-hyde-a.... But Joe Biden now supports federal funding of abortions. Thats because the social conservative block is split between the two parties. Conservative Hispanic and especially Black people often vote Democrat for other reasons. In a referendum, federal funding of abortion would be easily defeated. But in a system of representative government, it could become law.
Many other issues split this way. Over 60% of people support eliminating qualified immunity (which shields police from lawsuits) and limiting police union power. In a direct democracy, these issues would win easily. But support for these policies is split between the two parties. Moreover, the parties vigorously disagree about how city mayors handled the protests and riots this summer. So discrete issues like these where there might be bipartisan agreement get sucked up into a larger ideological dispute about when violent protests are justified in reaction to police brutality.