The ugly truth is that too much democracy always leads to populist dictators. And social media makes manufacturing consent way too easy.

One way around political parties, career corrupt politicians, and charismatic mass murderers is sortition. Directly elect a common legislative body who then set a minimal standard of qualifications for a very large pool of potentual upper echelon public administrators. From these, every X years, say 2 to 4, some people are chosen by lottery to run things. Divide up power a great deal more and never let the rich be in-charge of everything. It's purposefully not anarchistically "democratic" to avoid entire categories of problems that waste energy, treasure, lives, and effort on unmoored, fantastical political factionism will never solve, nor will any temporarily apparently balanced countervailing political status quo. It is utopian and naive to give everyone direct or semi-direct control because people will vote for what is cruel or popular rather than fairest or long-term essential. I'd rather have some semi-disinterested random person like a recently retired airline pilot or an accountant without bought alliances dig into big decisions with data, stakeholder input, and structured decision support.