If elected officials are in the habit of voting to suit their own ideologies — even when it means overriding the ideological preferences of many voters — then its hard to see how we can also call this “representative” or a system that transmits “consent” from the voters to their political representatives.

And yet, in spite of all the evidence that elected officials neither know the preference of voters, nor vote in accordance with them, we continue to be told that governments must be respected and obeyed because they have legitimacy granted to them by the fact they are “democratic” and “representative.”