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That's why stratocracy (the army is the government) is the only sane form of government, I think.
We could fix the problem of democracy (ostensible rulers are people elected on basis of popularity) but bureaucracy/NGOs actually running things by instituting a cooperative/competitive meaningful state-wide MMO wargame simulating industrial warfare, and people who do really well in it can be voted in into representative positions..
E.g. you start playing as a kid riding in a virtual tank or sailing a boat, shooting other kids doing the same, obeying orders from someone older,. Or for girls, running an open pit mine, taking care of a cotton farm or clearing out ancient bunkers looking for valuable trash or keeping a small refinery or factory running. All these are fun computer games requiring thought.
As people get older they take on more responsible tasks in the game, leaders get voted in. Running a war is one of the hardest tasks out there, and although the stakes are low (how +-5% much tax you pay next year as adult), pocket money as kids, so I'd expect after someone has taken parts in dozens of virtual campaigns you're going to end up with some pretty smart people in the more complex parts of the game - unit command, industrial coordination, strategy, logistics etc..
This is called "capitalism", and that effect is why the most capitalist countries have been the most powerful ever since it was invented (pre-empire Romans, Dutch, English, Americans). The accumulation of capital is fundamentally the accumulation of power; when people pay you to do something they want, that is them casting their vote to a much larger degree than their actual vote in a ballot box is.
Because capitalism directly rewards people for serving others in the most advanced way they can, it is only natural that those who cannot or will not serve seek to destroy it (forced redistributionism and creating an artificial scarcity of resources are the two most popular ways); it also runs into a problem where automation can obsolete (and thus bankrupt) so many people at the same time that a socialist revolution occurs in lieu of civil war (US, 1934).
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This (reality based learning and selection through mmo) is a really fun idea. Has this been described further elsewhere I could I nerdsnipe you into more detail?
Banks, Iain M. 1988. The Player of Games.
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