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Decades undermining and underfunding education. They want dumb consumers just informed enough to work a shit job and earn enough to survive but not thrive.

Decades of propaganda painting opposition to the GOP as literal Satan worshipping baby killing pedophiles, and when that's who you're running against, how could not vote for the GOP no matter how uneducated they are?

I've usually pointed towards our education system but I'm not so sure anymore. I think there's more at play.

I think it's more about the inherit individualism in America, "the American dream", capitalism, and the definition of The United States. There's a strong rejection of community support and social services. There's a desire to have more than we need. There's a fear of "others" who threaten your domicile and prosperity. The country was founded on a distrust of government with the formation of semi-sovereign states and multiple forms of checks and balances.

I think there's an argument that to "be American" means to be in opposition to and skeptical of government. At first, in wake of the revolutionary war, this seemed reasonable. With slow moving news and a journalistic industry maintaining the fourth pillar of democracy, without the temptation of ad revenue or competition with social media, Americans were, frankly, sheep to a small group of organizations. As a 21st century first first world country, we really need to get together and reassess what the role of government should be and how to draft a constitution that meets the needs of a nation in an increasingly connected (and shrinking) planet.

We are not afforded the tools to be competitive with the future of humanity.

I actually believe our lack of faith in religion has had a negative impact. We used to be more connected with our community. We largely trusted one another. It was not that long ago that hitch hiking across the country was a normal practice for teens. I don't believe in gods but I have respect for some aspects of some religious organizations. What seems to have replaced this is social media bubbles or tribes. Or internet forums like this.

We're an increasingly fractured nation that holds distrust of all things in high regard.

Also, we're a nation that defines wealth as the ability to acquire rather than the ability to give.

Because the Republicans have spent the last 40 years slowly demolishing public education. That combined with a steady feed of propaganda on AM radio and Fox News, plus mild lead poisoning from leaded gas usage prior to the 90s has resulted in multiple generations that lack even the most rudimentary critical thinking skills or scientific knowledge and are primed to believe whatever absurd conspiracy reinforces whatever their pastors and favorite talking heads are saying.

They're absolutely convinced that the US government has been infiltrated by "communists" that are engaged in grand sweeping conspiracies to destroy the US, and the only solution is to remove all power from the US government. They've been steeped in propaganda for decades that tells them all governments are corrupt and only corporations can be trusted, that the "free market" is the solution to all problems.

Decades of FUD. It's the same strategy totalitarian regimes follow around the world. You don't expect people to believe this shit. You just need them to question reality enough so that they don't believe the truth.

20 years ago my country used to look up to the US educational system and tried to adopt their methodologies, I'm glad we didn't

One of our political parties discovered they can reliably achieve short term goals by politicizing facts and science. The success of this strategy points out that it's available to anyone who wants to use it, which over time has meant that group of voters just got continually flooded with nonsense, until we got here.

There's (almost) no one pushing back from that side - the strategy is too successful, the margins of victory for the party are too small, and most politicians in general want what's best for them and would put the long term health of the group they're representing as a distant priority, if at all.

Doesn't even really require coordination/cooperation. With enough people willing to employ this strategy for enough time, by now the distrust of science and official communications is extremely entrenched.

If you're looking for the "why" we're susceptible to it, it's the same old story - people angry at how things are going can often be manipulated into blaming people and things other than the true causes, with obvious advantages / incentives for those doing the manipulation.

Why are y’all so dumb?

There were truthful realities that some people didn't like. Those realities were communicated by experts. Instead of people accepting those realities, there was an attack on experts. This happened in two ways:

• credentialed experts were discredited
• non-credentialed people claim the mantle of "expert" for themselves where they pushed whatever narrative they wanted.

Because there are now two groups calling themselves experts, and they are giving contradictory information, further loss of trust occurs. So the masses are picking and choosing which experts to listen to with whatever criteria they determine, and I'm not seeing a lot of informed decision making or critical thinking questioning sources.

Couple that with Clarke's proclamation: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

So our technology has evolved to do so many amazing things, those without understanding of the technology assume it can do so much more, and don't question things like "Dems control the weather".

So a whole bunch of us are dumb now.

Systemic regression of education priority + non-stop conspiratorial propaganda. I was born and grew up in the US and have seen the shift first-hand.

At least what you're seeing here is still just a very loud minority.

Why are y’all so dumb?

this is the wrong question, The real question is:

Why are y’all so mean?

See, the people believing this shit are the ones who, if being able to create a hurricane, would do it in an instant to harm their political opponents, so it makes sense to them others would do it. They would steal an election, they would get rid of elections once elected, they would pretend to be a shooting victim if paid enough money... Once you leave all morals behind and get on the me and my version of America first train, everything is possible and thinkable. It is not about "is this possible" or "can they do it" it is all about "if I could do it I would so they are doing it".

Rupert Murdoch.

Several reasons that I know of and probably a lot more that I don't, but basically ignorance and lack of critical thinking skills.

1. Our educational system is underfunded and has cut a lot of things that used to be taught, like Civics/Government, so no one knows how things work and assume the only important office is the presidency, and that it has control over everything. Other subjects and extracurricular activities that help teach critical thinking like Speech/Interpersonal communication, Current Events, Logic, Debate, etc. have been dropped or cut back to only superficial coverage. Watch some old videos of schoolchildren being interviewed about various topics and you'll be amazed at how informed and thoughtful they were for their age back then compared to now (not to mention polite).

2. The information bubbles of social media and the algorithms that amplify disinformation on places like Facebook, X/twitter, YouTube, etc. They suck people deeper and deeper into rabbit holes of insanity. Foreign powers such as Russia, Iran, and other enemies of democracy exploit this by injecting and amplifying their own disinfo to sow anger and division.

3. and finally one of the worst offenders: FOX "News". Ever since this station started it has been a brainwashing tool. Most of the people you are talking about, who believe all this crap, especially the older ones who are more into TV watching are avid FOX news viewers, used to listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio and are also listening to people like Alex Jones and others like him. It all feeds on itself.

It’s just statistics, honestly. Greater population means greater number of dumb people. FYI, you can be rich and dumb, or college educated and dumb, too.

America also doesn’t implement strict control over information or discourse like other countries with greater populations, like China. The problem is that outside of gerrymandering America does have free and fair elections, which is why the greater swaths of “dumb” people can present an actual danger.

As an American southerner I don't appreciate your cultural appropriation

Tons of Russian ops too

Its contagious. There's fascist uprisings going on everywhere, not just in the US. I think a lot of "Trump supporters" we see online is astroturfing, making it seem he has more supporters than he does

US citizens have always been this dumb. But the Internet has made it cheap and easy for the idiots to gain a platform. The media was expensive 20 years ago and complicated so the idiots didn't have the skills to use it.