opinion 8

Its a generic term, that sounds nice but is so general as to be misleading and incorrect. Just as the expression "Everyone Knows That"

Most everything. We are not a democracy nor have we ever been that. We are a republic, dependant on people with there own self interest to do what we hope is the right thing for our nation and society. However these people are motivated by power and money. We citizens helped make the problem worse. If a candidate doesnt have buckets of money they cant get there message out, so our representatives focus on money, not people. Additionally very few have the courage to speak the truth, simple truths as in " no program is free, what ever we do we have to pay for" No one wants to say, that America Companies have learned to function without the people they laid off, so where are we getting 15 million jobs. We as a people and society are very happy not to hear about things that dont directly impact us.

Free media time. Dependant on the office, every candidate gets a certain but equal amount of paper, TV, radio, etc time. But thats it to get there message out.
New procedure for pulling elected officials out of their position if a majority of people dont like there performance.
Federal House of Representatives put up a web site, that provides number of response to a given bill, or policy that states number of response, number for it number against it. We here representatives tell us that there voters have asked for (blank) I want proof. No congressman has ever polled me, or any of my co workers. We you get the idea, prove to me that this is national opinion.
Federal Web site that allows "us" to vote on laws and policy. Not that our vote decides, however that everyone can see the number of people who take the time to use it, in favor or against. Than our representative would have publicly displayed number of people who have voices an interest to decide how they should vote.
If people are not interested, than they would have to accept what ever happens, but our government needs to provide the opportunity for people to get interested again.