Nobody wants the public to understand, they want the public to support their position. So the information that the public receives will always be completely distorted, and people who work will not have the time to untwist it.
Frantz Fanon, from heaven, hypothetically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
Maybe the public needn't understand, or vote on what "is" - but they can vote on what "ought" to be.
They cannot vote that every bus be on time - this isn't guaranteed to be possible, nor should politicians imply it could be. But they can set the priority, and % of the budget, allocated to improving bus times.
You cannot vote that the sky is green, or that 2 + 2 =5; but you can dictate that society be governed as if these things are true. You can't dictate results: that all endeavours are successful, all wars won; but you can say what endeavours are budgeted, wars are fought - and what resources are allocated to them.
The problem is that informed framing is so hard that this isn't always possible without truth being held hostage by motivated gatekeepers.
Counterpoint quote
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Who's doing the explaining? What viewpoints do they offer? How much time and mental energy do the people have to educate themselves on the issues?
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 1961, pp. 188–189