Two things are needed in a democracy: articulate and knowledgeable publics, and political leaders who if not men of reason are at least reasonably responsible to such knowledgeable publics as exist. Only where publics and leaders are responsive and responsible, are human affairs in democratic order, and only when knowledge has public relevance is this order possible.

For a democracy to work well at least two ingredients are essential: competent leaders who have the best interest of all people in mind and well-informed people able to check their government. But this is obviously not the case in this extremely materialistic world evidenced by growing extreme inequality and the ignorant sheeple's blind faith and trust in their more and more openly corrupt governments which merely dance to the tunes of the ruling power elite.

The ease with which certain opinions obtain general acceptance results more especially from the impossibility experienced by the majority of men of forming an opinion peculiar to themselves and based on reasoning of their own. ... The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
The man of modern times is more and more a prey to indifference

Sheeple are people with a herd mentality who are docile, complacent, compliant, and easily influenced. They suffer from cognitive dissonance and feel discomfort when confronted with facts that don't fit with their preconceived belief which is based on government and mainstream media brainwashing to which they have been exposed for most of their lives. Ignorance is bliss. Bryan Caplan talked about popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters.

For example Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 show that facts and reality don't matter to the sheeple, and that artifically induced emotion by the ruling elite and their media is driving this misguided generation in a pathetic world in which the unfortunate death of one black drug addict* and criminal, convicted of aggravated robbery of a woman at gunpoint* among other crimes, causes massive and violent protests around the world while the fact that one person is dying of hunger every 48 seconds in drought-ravaged Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia* is simply ignored all the time.

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

The richest people on earth make use of their power to their own benefit evidenced by for example extreme inequality in their favor. They own and control the mass media which are used to spread their ideology and propaganda. They own and control the educational system which is used to train people to function in the system designed to maximize profits for the power elite. They own the so-called "think tanks, NGO's and foundations" which operate in their favor. The power elite of powerful multinationals, corporations and banks lobby for politicians. Often after these crony politicians have proven their worth for the power elite they get rewarded with for example a lucrative position in some multinational corporation or any other position of power.

Every nation gets the government it deserves.

One could also say that every nation gets the government that is imposed on it. Because before a president is elected by the powerless people below, the candidates have already been selected by the powerful elite above.

Sooner or later people will wake up. First we have to dump the trap of right and left, this is a Hegelian trap to divide and control. The battle is not between right and left; it is between us and them.*

The left-right paradigm gives the sheeple the illusion of choice and it is a good example of the tactic divide and rule. The power elite control both left and right and know all too well that when the sheeple are divided the herd can be more easily controlled. It doesn't make any significant difference who gets elected because all candidates first of all serve the interests of themselves and the powerful people above. Voting for a politician comes down to the lesser of two evils principle. It's like choosing between an Apple or an Android. Both take away your privacy and both offer the same apps and propaganda approved by the power elite and their governments, and often those apps cannot even be removed from your device, they are forced upon you.

The issues that now shape man's fate are neither raised nor decided by the public at large.

In reality democracy is managed by the power elite to their own benefit.

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Man matures when he stops believing that politics solves his problems.

Politics thrives on problems. There's a saying that goes insanity is like doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. Voting time and again and expecting the situation to change is quite insane after so many years of no change in any significant sense for common people who suffer the consequences more and more of ever growing inequality and diminishing rights and freedoms.

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.*

An ancient axiom of politics teaches that a spoiled people invite despotic control.

Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Most people in the west are not only extremely spoiled and ignorant, but they also generally believe they are free. Free to choose between presidential candidates, left or right, both sides sponsored and presented by the power elite who all have the same ideas about power and control. A nation of sheep will get a government of wolves.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture... As Huxley remarked... the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." ... Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

Both Orwell's and Huxley's dystopian worldviews already exist more or less simultaneously in this day and age. The power elite label everything secret which they don't want the public to know while corruption peaks and inequality rises. They flood the public with entertainment on a scale never seen before. The power elite and their mass media and Big Tech are censoring everything and everybody that doesn't fit with their preferred version of the story. People are slaves to materialism and drenched in consumerism. People are made to believe in democracy while in reality they are controlled by the globalist elite who are taking away people's freedoms and rights. The iron law of oligarchy contends that all organizations, including those committed to democratic ideals, will inevitably succumb to rule by an elite few or an oligarchy.*