One begets the politician that one wants, I'm afraid. Either of the right or left. Populism is bad, and even on the liberal side the present problems come from the populism strain. Ancient Greek democracy wasn't anything near to what we have now. Then people allowed to vote was limited but they had the power to remove any leader by simple vote at any time too. Personally, I think that the lack of true leaders is the result of the lack of confidence in society. Cynicism and dissolution have done their damage and nowadays the reaction isn't about doing something oneself but rather sit there and wait for the next person to fail