Another example, if you survey basically any multi-party European state such as Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and so on purely on economic policies, you'll overwhelmingly find people supporting much more progressive taxation and in general more socialist economic policies. I'm talking large majorities. Including nationalization of many institutions and so on. Yet their governments have done the direct opposite for decades. Not very representative.
The better representation you're talking about is very surface level, for everything that matters the outcome is that favored by big capital.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/06/04/most-peop...
Martin Gilens and Benjamin page published an article that uses data to come to this conclusion about the public's influence on American policy:
"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."
Iskander De Bruycker and Marcel Hanegraaff authored a recent study, focusing on the EU, in which they "demonstrate that interest groups with more economic resources are generally more influential, but only if their policy positions are congruent with a public majority." Sorry this one is paywalled. Such is the state of academic publishing. :(
[0] https://archive.org/details/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_th...
[1] European Journal of Political Research , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , February 2024 , pp. 26 - 44 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12582