Yikes! You sound like Obama
Seriously, the general population is not too dumb. Sure there are some real idiots out there but they are the minority. It is only the LSM that focuses on them. Most people are ignorant (look up the defn, I'm not saying they are stupid) because they lack information. Provide 90+% of the population with the data and they will make the right choice.
If you assume government is the anwer and enable liberalism you enable a society that is lazy and dependant. The relationship should be that the nanny state causes ignorance, not the other way around. A good example is the discussion around why young adults "fail to launch", that many are still at home. The primary reason is overprotection by the parents. Isn't that the nanny state? Isn't that the result of years of moving to the Left?
So should we move further to the Left or realize our errors and move away from Marxist/Euro-Socialist/Neo-Conservatives? I suspect the spending binge of the last 50+ years, which was a result of moving to the Left, will force a retrenchment back to conversative values. There is already discussion of how we need to return to the values of our grandparents, great-grandparents or even great-great-grandparents.
That is not the values of Obama.