Right, but people were dumber in the past and democracy (arguably) worked better.
In the past people were more compliant because they had no access to information that would allow them to challenge what they were told. Now we have so much information that people have to choose the information to consider instead of accepting whatever is available. The side effect of too much choice is people are now choosing information based on what makes them feel comfortable which, in turn, has divided society into incompatible echo chambers that cannot communicate with each other because they can't agree on the basic facts.