I feel like this article tries too hard to give people an easy way out. I wish the stress and threat weren't there, but they are very real. It is a crisis of democracy, and IMHO if we just go to work every day and try to do the conscientious thing without thinking too much or acting on the crisis, we are failing our obligations as a citizen of democracy. It's like trying to go about your business during WWII, doing nice things for people, ignoring what's happening around you.
In prior generations many, many people gave up careers, wealth, and their lives to give our generation this democracy, this freedom and properity. What will we give the next generation? Why should we have ever imagined that we would have it easy and just get to consume the benefits that our predecessors provided to us, like free riders? I think that assumption, that the democracy was a given and we didn't have to do anything about it, is a reason we are in this position now.
'All it takes for evil to prosper is for good people to do nothing.'
My apologies if it sounds like a lecture!