I often feel like democracy has failed us. We have elected trash leaders. My perspective of democracy was that it was to protect us against both unjust rulers

I often feel like democracy has failed us. We have elected trash leaders. My perspective of democracy was that it was to protect us against both unjust rulers and ineffective rulers. The end result was instead of potential kings/rulers fighting each other directly as they did in ancient times, they fight each other indirectly by trying to get votes. They are not much different then previous era's.... Is it really this hard to get a wise ruler who both cares about the well being of humans and can take the long term view? Someone who can tell fact from fiction.