A pure democracy would actually be a nightmarish form of totalitarianism in which the majority was able to enforce its norms upon any minority without any checks or balance.
The US is a constitutional republic in which democratic institutions act as one check upon power.
The only groups who have a problem with CISA are the technical community and some civil liberties advocates.
CISA is not an example of a law passed in the face of popular opposition.
Quite true. However, considering how the financier of these advertisements can be obfuscated or just not reported period, you're basically asking people to ignore all political advertising and be suspect about just about everything they read, hear or see.
Democracy is sort of a plutocratic oligarchy system where ordinary people are recruited to be intermediaries and are therefore given the illusion of power.
Now, I'm in favour of city-states, but I do know that it's only a daydream.
Postscript: I think that the US is sort of like the continuation of the Empire. D.C. is the new Rome. And it is indeed sort of a Senatus populusque americanus, in that people rule the state. But as Aulus Gellius says, here, people means patricians.