If we can't effectively prosecute this criminal 45, we deserve him.

[disalitervisum]

4. Ideology over education

I think that's the primary cause, although like everything else, there are many complex factors that contribute to overall stupidity of a society. To your point, there was once a time when we were called "citizens" rather than "consumers." As Howard Beale said In the movie Network (1976) "Just give us our toasters and steel belted radials and leave us alone."

The lack of education is appalling. I know people who can't find Canada on a map, let alone know anything about their local government or this country. The excuse is that they have bills to pay, so they don't need the arts, science, music, philosophy, history...I once found myself in a discussion where the other participants insisted that Iran was in Africa. Much like today's embrace of alternative facts and maintaining that it doesn't matter if the re-tweets of hate videos are real or not, ala Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who undoubtedly knows better.

Of course, the other primary driver of idiocy and ignorance is religion. When fundamentalists posit that dinosaurs and humans lived together, you know that when they watch The Flintstones they think it's a documentary.

This is what happens when objective truth is made relative.