Human Nature

[Ivan Denisovich]

Here you're talking about what SHOULD be true, and I certainly agree with you. 

People should put in the necessary effort, and they should be too smart to get fooled quite so easily. 

I also think that people with power and media clout should make it easier for people to achieve those things. 

But I guess we're kind of back at the OP now -- do we think that those things will ever be possible in the real world? Or are we justified in being gloomy, and thinking there's no hope?

I sort of tend toward the latter, I guess.

Putting bare minimum of effort into informed voting is more than possible, it is practiced by millions of people around the world. If even one person can be arsed to think others can be too. Question is if there will be enough voters who realize that interest of billionaires aren't the same as theirs.