Politics always attempts to confound people who don't subscribe to rational argument; they might as well get confounded in the right direction. This is not WarGames, where "the only winning move is not to play". We lose nothing by trying, and we stand to gain a great deal.
Rationality requires constant introspection and vigilance; the short attention span and sensationalism is making it increasingly difficult. I'm not saying "the only winning move is not to play", I'm wondering, is there a winning move (the defeatist attitude that I alluded to in the previous comment)? Maybe I'm just looking for a quick fix that never exists for any serious problem.
Edit: Sorry if it looks like I'm thinking out loud.
Ie invent something that makes politics irrelevant in some area. This is somewhat happening with education (ie Khan, Codecademy, Stanford, etc), for instance.