A nationwide public initiative process would be a far superior mechanism of governance than the United States Senate.
You’d preserve the Presidency and US House (the more representative institutions) and where those (or the courts) fall short you’d have direct democracy with initiatives to cut through institutional barriers and enact laws (even constitutional amendments with a higher threshold).
Policies broadly supported like addressing economic inequality, etc are unlikely to happen under the existing system because the politicians who get elected are almost exclusively wealthy and refuse broaden access. But they might happen if it were put directly on the ballot.
You’d still have (wealthy) people who try to weaponize the initiative process as they do in state initiatives. But that’s not different from the status quo. They already get what they want via the existing system. This would at least open up a possible mechanism of democracy.
In states where democracy is already restricted by voter suppression, gerrymandering, etc (like Florida) the initiative process is one of the only mechanisms that is still somewhat democratic. And it looks like much of the rest of the country is moving in that direction too.
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