there was an era in psychological research (late sixties, early seventies if my memory serves me correctly) when they started to discover that people consistantly failed basic reasoning tests proving an inability to perform even rudimentary logic (despite high educations, and even formal logic training)…meant for a while there a lot of psychologists were pretty scared of democracy and were seeing the virtues of the old “philosopher kings” idea…

more than anything poor education and connections between media companies and political parties has always worried me. the philosophy behind democracy holds as an assumption a well-educated voting population and a press willing to hold governments and politicians responsible for their actions… two things missing in the US.

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/11/06/bryan-caplan/the-myth-of-the-rational-voter/

I’ve only skimmed over the first few para but seems very interesting.