I just read the 4/6/14 vox ( Ezra Klein website) article called Politics makes us stupid which revisits research that shows more evidence on subjects where people derive identity from more info makes one more ideological and does not convince anyone to change their minds. Climate change is the issue most identified with this effect. More info just makes skeptics more effective at arguing their original position. People reject evidence that might cause them to question their tribal identity and change their minds. Research which is contrary to their original position is rejected. This is not surprising. Plato and our Founders were very suspicious of Democracy. USA 2014 is a strong argument for Plato's position on democracy; people are not good at making decisions based on evidence. If one has not read The Republic is a while Plato says the masses are not qualified to lead and are too easily mislead by demagogues. Our Founders were very cautious about democracy and designed our constitution with only a carefully limited amount of Democracy. They were very impressed with the judgement of the non-titled Elites of North America, but were wary of mob rule, otherwide known as direct democracy. Progressives have long advocated for more democracy and have long been disappointed by the failure of the masses to vote progressively. Napoleon III understood this. When French Liberals wanted to expand the franchise Napoleon called their bluff by advocating Universal sufferage, knowing peasants were conservative by nature. He defeated his opponents at the ballot box.
The USA today shows some of the concerns about Democracy were not misplaced. We cannot do anything about Climate Change, for instance because of the deep unpopularity of measures that might actually alleviate Climate disaster among much of the public. I do not know what would be better, but expanded franchise does not always bring more progressive or intelligent policies. The problems of Monarchy were pretty obvious by the 18th century but when people have a decent King monarchy works well. A bad king makes the problems obvious, but the problems of people voting on inadequate or distorted information are obvious today. Tribal identity is stronger than reason, stronger than logic, stronger than almost any other motivation. Climate change is a problem which our tens of thousands of years as hunter gatherers, as opposed to barely 10,000 years of agriculture and civilization, have prepared us poorly. Immediate needs were the real needs and nothing required the long term vision necessary to deal with a problem such as Climate Catastrophe. If we could get Philosopher kings we would be better off, but the people with the nature and skill set to gain power are usually not the people who understand what is needed to do for long term problems. The objection to Plato ( where do we find Philosopher kings) still stands. Enlightened despots such as Bismark initiated many of our most progressive policies, such as Universal health care. I do not have the answer but more democracy is not always the answer.