I am seriously worried about the future of our Republic. The reason I worry is because our system is seriously at risk as a direct result of the quality of our elected officials. They are completely unable/unwilling to do what is right at any point.

To explain:

In Federalist 10, James Madison wrote about the problem of factions and how they destroy governments and societies. In that essay, he specifically explained we are set up as a Republic to fight against factionalism, which runs rampant in a direct democracy.

When a group/faction gets together and pursues a particular objective (even if it is bad and undermines society), then it is hard for anyone to fight against it in a direct democracy. They have the votes so they can force everyone else to go down their preferred path.

Madison noted that you can fight against such factionalism by addressing the causes (denying all liberty to people or having everyone agree) or addressing the effects. It is obviously bad to deny people freedom (see China) and it is against human nature for everyone to just agree

So a direct Democracy is useless in fighting against ignorant or misinformed masses so founders instead looked for way to limit the effects of such factions. They did that by dispersing power and trusting elected officials to behave responsibly.