ujm, what is your principle? There is a clear difference here: either you trust majority and then you are in favor of pure democracy, or you want to be more conservative and create various entities and slow-down rules that require super-majorities and agreement across different geographic areas and social groups for law-making. There was even an original proposal to introduce the same in the executive (3 co-presidents representing north, middle, south). Polish seim used to have a veto system – where one member was able to block legislator and this eventually failed the country, including due to foreign (Russian) influence who could always buy off a couple of members.
So, if you are looking for a middle ground, you need to look at it empirically – did we go too far in one or another direction? Looking over 200+ years, US seems to be doing not bad comparing with peers. Looking more at the downside – US escaped a lot of social turmoil that grappled Europe and corrupted government of South America. Maybe England, Canada, and Australia have comparable success, but they can’t defend democracy in the world lately without US. Is the secret simply in speaking English and being separated y water from Europe?!