> If it passes and a recall election occurs at some point, then the people got exactly what they wanted.

Not necessarily, you can look at CA's rules, for instance--a recall petition only requires 12% of the voters in the prior election to trigger the recall.

> It seems to me that the criticism of these ballot measures is a veiled admittance that the electorate is inherently dumb and will vote against their own self interest

Not necessarily, you can look at CA's Chesa Boudin recall election, for instance, where the appointee who took his place (and won the special election) simply neglected to disclose that she'd earned 6 figures working as a consultant working on the recall campaign itself, and promptly fired everybody involved in addressing wrongful convictions and police misconduct. But hey, on the bright side, crime rates haven't come down either, so who's to say this isn't democracy in action?