So we can't just put the smart people in charge. We have to slowly educate the stupid people out of existence, until the dumbest 51% are finally capable of determining the best people to make decisions, based primarily on their aptitude, rather than on their popularity.
When voting for county dogcatcher, for instance, people would look for "D.V.M." after the candidate's name, rather than "(D)" or "(R)". When people want to hire me, they look at my resume, not my hairline, lapel pin, or party affiliation.
Hey, here's an idea! What's the political science equivalent of FizzBuzz? Whatever it is, you can't get on the ballot unless you can do that thing, live, unaided, and in front of witnesses.
"We have the answers. We're just not soulless enough to want to go through (and perhaps change, in the process) the effort to supply them and make them help."
Platitudes rarely change things.
I get that it's not everyone's desired path (it's certainly not mine), I just think that saying "many of us are smart enough to have the answers, we just choose not to get involved in politics" is perhaps an... underestimation... of the complexity of some of society's problems.