Hong Kong, Democracy, and Bureaucracy

From this FP translation of a HK legislator's open letter on the current situation:

Hong Kong is incapable of making adjustments in the face of economic change, because it is like a car that has lost its steering wheel. Naturally, it is bumping into everything, and the further it goes, the worse it gets.

And as a car without a steering wheel, which direction the wheels turn depends on which potholes the car hits. In Hong Kong, those potholes are public sentiment. Public opinion is like the face of a toddler, constantly changing. Without a steady direction for policymaking, blindly following public opinion means that policy will constantly flip-flop.

Some in Hong Kong say that the city's economy is tepid because its government doesn't obey public opinion. But Hong Kong's prosperity has nothing to do with popular will. Did the British colonial government care about Hong Kong public opinion? Besides, the SAR government does not ignore public opinion -- like a blindfolded donkey, it allows itself to be led around the millstone of public opinion.

The bolding is my emphasis. Hong Kong's problems with public opinion are not in any way unique; indeed, they are only in the beginning stage of a phenomenon that has reached a fever pitch in Western democracies. 

Populist democratic governments are unable to form coherent and long-term policies due to constant shifts in public opinion. With the exception of some policies emerging from entrenched bureaucracies such as the EPA and DoD, it is nearly impossible for large-scale projects and policies to continue as they were envisioned from administration to administration. 

Problems commonly attributed to bloated bureaucratic organizations are, IMO, at least partly attributable to the environment which surrounds these institutions. This is not a defense of bureaucracy, but nonstop fluctuations in governing priorities from the top is a major problem that most people don't touch on. 

Folks say these days that your vote doesn't matter. I'm fairly certain it does. That's not a good thing.