These are very good points. (Except maybe salt, what's wrong with salt?). But breathing in particular, I'd say breathing in for 5 seconds and 5 seconds out, and filling your lungs is maybe the most relaxing thing in the world. One could devote life just for appreciating that.
Here's what I propose, to lessen the effect of populism: The elections are held in a tournament format. People are divided into randomised brackets. People then in that bracket decide who amongst them is most fit to be a leader.
This is then repeated recursively until enough politicians are selected.
Would be nice if you could integrate some kind of spelling checker with it. I'm not fluent in English so it would be nice to not have to copy paste the text somewhere else to make sure there isn't any silly spelling mistakes.