Guttenberg ink NEVER achieved the immediacy, impact & penetration of electronic media (please don't say 'whutabouthebible').

Of course. But that doesn't mean that the electorate of the past was any more accurately informed that it is today. When I say that "this is not a new thing," I'm not referring to the medium. I'm referring to the fact that the electorate is largely acting on a stew of ignorance, myth, bias, lies and propaganda.

That mix of ignorance, myth, bias, lies and propaganda used to be transmitted in different ways. For most of our history, it wasn't even through any formal media - people would believe the lies and misinformation they heard at the pub or through local gossip or at church. But they were believing lies and misinformation all the same, leavened by a healthy ignorance of entire swathes of human knowledge before we got high school graduation rates out of the single digits. These voters have always been believing the crap that someone in their life was spewing - the difference now is that they can fall for the crap someone a thousand miles away is spewing, rather than just the guy in their local pub/church/workplace.

Again, I think you're romanticizing an electorate that has never existed. They might have gotten their misinformation from local gossip rather than high-speed internet, but they were misinformed all the same.