* a 71 year old lady, with no social media and no public speeches ever.
* a guy who used a nickname for his last name, that matched with a military general (who is well known), and many people thought he was the general
* a "journalist" that was caught twice talking on live TV, conversing with a pre-recorded video
* a convicted criminal
It's impressive to manage to fail as a politician.
Would you want to deal with those voters as, effectively, your boss?
Would happily work with voters to figure out a path forward.
I dunno. I kinda do think voters are the problem. Or at least a link in a chain of problems, the next link up being corporate controlled media.
One place that tries to do it better in my opinion is Switzerland. It has a lot of controls to reduce the ability of politicians to act poorly and limits the power of higher levels (if something can be resolved well locally, there's no need to have a higher-level regulation). A lot of process is thought through and in place to enable direct voting on issues. Additionally, it has many levels to get engaged, which lowers the barriers to entry, by being able to have an impact on a local level.