I use senators as an example, but it is hard to have representative democracy when you have no relationship with those you are meant to represent. I always bring up Dunbar's number[1] in the context of politics, because I have concluded that you can't have legitimate representation much beyond it. You can't care about your constituents legitimately as a limit of human psychology.
Without fail, every single state and federal representative today is representing on the orders of tens of thousands to millions of people per elected official. It is unreasonable to expect them to act in the will of their constituents when they have no way to know them as people and not figures. It is a fundamental fault I have always seen in democracy the world over, and think it is where the pressure from many people for direct democracy comes from, albeit misguided.
Without fail, every single state and federal representative today is representing on the orders of tens of thousands to millions of people per elected official. It is unreasonable to expect them to act in the will of their constituents when they have no way to know them as people and not figures. It is a fundamental fault I have always seen in democracy the world over, and think it is where the pressure from many people for direct democracy comes from, albeit misguided.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number