[thesumofall]

> Most crucially, democracy relies on an educated electorate, but access to really excellent education is minimal globally. This exposes democracies to disinformation and populism

Not so sure about that. Some of today’s autocratic leaders are incredibly smart and educated people and still took the wrong turn. If education doesn’t work for these leaders why should it work for the electorate?

Hence, I’m leaning more towards your last point that it’s maybe more about values and morals? A common understanding of what is „good?“ You can certainly sharpen these through education but there seems to be more at play. Our world also seems to have moved beyond some of the simplistic moral frameworks of the past… Maybe the current times of turbulence are the precursor to the development of new moral frameworks?

[martin-t]

> Some of today’s autocratic leaders are incredibly smart and educated people and still took the wrong turn

This assumes every person has the same goals. The reality is that the privileged (autocrats at the extreme end of the spectrum) have completely different incentives and objectives. E.g. a person who gets most of their income through salaried work benefits from completely different (often opposite policies) than a person who gets most of their income from renting real property or from taking a cut from the profit of companies he "owns".

> Maybe the current times of turbulence are the precursor to the development of new moral frameworks?

Hopefully.

I for one would like to see a consistent (without contradictions) moral system not based on "authority" (religion or state).

[donkeybeer]

The world hasn't gotten better informed. More than 90% of the world still believes in absurd fairy tales.

[rich_sasha]

I don't think we're lacking intelligent and motivated people who want to be elected to implement their agenda - for good or bad reasons.

Rather, the electorate is not equipped to tell the good ones from the bad ones. And I don't even mean, they aren't voting the way I'd like. Trump is doing everything he said he'll do, and his popularity is so low. Why? We see this over and over again.

Otherwise, I cannot reconcile how people are genuinely voting for terrible politicians and falling for blatant populism and propaganda.

[thesumofall]

Because we all do. There is a limit to all of us how much we can process and how much we truly want to challenge rather than just accept. In personal life, at work, in politics, and even more so for the big questions of humanity. All of us accept a lot of things at face value and move on. Some put maybe more attention to politics, others have maybe better heuristics, and some select few are maybe smart enough that they can constructively challenge more than others