Dumb and dumber Americans


 https://roanoke.com/opinion/columnists/strong-dumb-and-dumber-americans/article_e5bbceea-ee2d-11eb-a203-5feb5f206238.html


In a widely reported 2017 survey, 7% of adult Americans agreed with the statement that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. That is “udder” nonsense. But more than 16 million people thought it was true. Maybe schools should offer better instruction in nutrition and agriculture; or maybe the ingredient labels on cartons of chocolate milk need a larger type.

The comical cow survey result belongs to a tradition of pollsters posing the burning question: Just how dumb are the American people? Their findings are not reassuring.

Surprising numbers think that vaccines are not safe (45%); climate change is not real (20%); dinosaurs and people lived at the same time (14%); the moon landing was faked (7%); crystal healing has efficacy (6%); and the earth is flat (2%).

In a survey sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center a few years ago, only 26% of Americans could name all three branches of the federal government; 33% could not think of one. Thirty-seven percent could not name a single right protected by the Bill of Rights. I guess you can add civics, geology, medicine, history, and climatology to the list of American educational deficiencies.

Today, roughly one-third of Americans, and two-thirds of Republicans, believe that Joe Biden “won” the 2020 election only because of widespread voter fraud. One in three Americans believe what the rest the country calls “the big lie.”

Sore losers and liars — and their misinformed followers — may roam and rampage among us. But if judicial institutions, honest election officials and solid public majorities consistently reject the false claims of election fraud, the republic will survive. And chocolate milk will still be made from cocoa, sugar and the life-sustaining liquid produced by cows of many colors.

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