The following quote appears in a review of a bio of John Kenneth Galbraith that appears in Eric Alterman's blog on MSNBC:

Government by the free consent of the governed has given way to government by the implicit acquiescence of the adequately distracted. We don’t want to know that the world is complicated and asks our attention. We want to watch The Apprentice.

For me, this is a pretty good summary of the underlying malaise that afflicts modern "Western" democracies.