It still matters what the voters do, they have the authority. This makes it all the more desirable, and necessary, for an elite to "manage" or sway those votes. Exactly how much power do you think you have as a voter? Not much, individually. Which is why the people who have the power to combine those votes, and shape consensus, are that kind of powered elite. Do you understand? Coming from Canada, a constitutional monarchy/parliamentary democracy, I'm quite sure you are familiar with the fact that power and authority are not always commensurate.
It's almost like wealth: one person with a dollar in his/her pocket cannot achieve much. But when you combine your dollar with everyone else's dollar, you can actually do important
**** with it. (Build a bridge, run public schools, buy an F-35 joint strike fighter....etc.)
For example, In California the people can literally pass laws themselves. The present constitution originates from a time when people were sick of the railroad barons (business interests/special interests) making the governor and California Legislature into their private stooges. So they brought about a method by which the legislature and governor could be bypassed and, with them, the corrupt special interests; namely, passing plebiscites. All you need to get a question on the next election ballot is 250,000 signatures on a correctly-worded petition. Let freedom ring!
Unfortunately, it hasn't turned out that way. What do you need to get such a prolific petition drive? You need organization. Who has organization, and the money and influence to not only do the petition drive but to shape its outcome? Special interests. The unions. Big Business, etc., basically the people who have the power to shape policy through the ballot box. The voters have the authority, but elite interests have the power to bring those votes together in large blocks as a class, and swing the result one way or the other.
This isn't "having it both ways" as you put it. It's how it actually happens. If you really think that in any democratic country the voters can make a difference alone, and that a "real democracy" has little or no "elite", then please pass whatever you're smoking to me. It looks terribly pleasant.
Other democracies don't give so much power to whom they elect as leader as does the US. And oops, they now have to deal with an idiot like Trump closing the doors of government for the most stupid reasons.
Rubbish (about the power of the president). Your prime minister has more power in his pinky finger than a Pres. of the United States has in his whole hand. Our dear leader LOOKS more powerful to people in other countries because he has a world reach that most other national leaders do not. But that only means the whole federal government of the United States has a world reach, not the president by himself.
(not to get off topic but you cannot check and balance what isn't constitutionally described at all. But again, I do not want this to degenerate into a Canada v. America thread.)
This thread was intended to be a more theoretical discussion. I believe in democracy as the best we can do at the moment, I just happen to admit that, as with any form of government, the drawbacks must and always do accompany the advantages. It's a double-edged sword. You cannot have a particular government and enjoy its advantages without living with its drawbacks.