You’re only able to choose two options, how is that democracy? I thought democracy was about being able to choose anyone you think is suitable to be a leader, not one of two pre-selected people. At that point, it’s not much different to a one-party system, just with two people rather than only one person.
Referendums are calling propositions in the US and are voted on at the state level. Special interests pay tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for deceptive TV ads for or against propositions. The messages tend to be very dumbed down because the average person is too stupid to vote for anything beyond a simple slogan.
Direct democracy leads to a lot of idiot things getting done. Representative democracy was better for a while, but you still get Nazis coming to power from time to time.
Churchill had it about right: