200 years ago an individual working on a farm would have zero practical influence on the national scale. They did not have to fight evil everyday because they were not aware of it and it didn't effect them.
I'd make an argument (open to being wrong) that the majority of people who choose to degrade their quality of life, daily, fighting (lesser or fake) "evil" have no meaningful effect on the outcome. There's a small percentage of dedicated people who make a difference. The mentality that you're describing just encourages more people to join that majority and actively lowers the influence of those dedicated people because of it.
I’m pretty sure on the whole you’re wrong about 200 years ago, and wrong overall. The sentiments I wrote mirror those from Ancient Greece, and there are many equivalents from a great many societies since then.
Do you think people didn’t have to deal with bandits? Or try to decide if they should give to their neighbors during a famine instead of pretend they had nothing?
Or deal with being (or their children being) conscripted into terrible wars or defend their land? Or had to make decisions on a day to day basis on if they should take advantage of someone, or protect someone?
The focus you seem to have on national politics to the exclusion of all else is the bigger issue I think?
We have the most influence on the things closest to us, and as things get larger and further from us that wanes. National issues bubble up. I’m not saying ‘go March on Washington for every issue’.
I’m saying ‘stop the abuses you can, make the best decisions you can, and work hard to make things better where you can’. And don’t just sit back and go ‘meh, I don’t make a difference anywhere’.
Because you can make a difference somewhere.
That means local, regional, etc. can be impacted more - and that is often done by day to day decisions. That means $50 to a cause, if it is worthwhile and effective in others. That means taking a stand in a water cooler discussion, even if it won’t make friends, when it is important. That means, if you have kids, teaching them right and wrong in a useful way.
That world you pine for has never existed, except when others took up the burden that you did not realize you needed to bear, or chose to ignore.