This is not accidental. The Republican party, at all levels. has sought to de-fund, cripple, and damage public education. Their intent has been to create a population incapable of informed, independent critical thinking.That strategy has been in effect for the last 30 years.

Don't be a pessimist. Vote Republicans out of office!

What we're going through sucks but I'm not about ready to give up yet this is my country too.

The American dynasty became a lot like duck dynasty.
Misinformation from the right has always been a problem, but Sarah Palin was ground zero for the current gathering of idiocracy.
Trump saw it and pounced on it and turned it up to ten.
With QAnon and an openly racist president, it has gotten so far out of hand I don't think we'll ever recover.
Even if Biden wins he's to moderate to bring us back.
To quote C3PO..."We're doomed"

When nature gets wind of what American society has stooped to, evolution will be forced to work weekends.

We are already the most backward First world country there is. People just don't get the whole American religiousness and with good reason.

I'd say we're about one Supreme Court Justice away from exactly that.

I'm not so sure American intellect was ever in such abundant supply. I think we have a tendency to romanticize the past. That's not to say that some things aren't worse today, however, but I don't think it's because the average person is dumber now; we just have more opportunity to spread conspiratorial nonsense and superstition and fear/hate than we've ever had before. Human nature has always lent itself to such failings, but never before have we had the tools to organize our darker impulses than with the advent of the internet and, especially, of social media. And it's that unification of irrationality that has eroded the trust in, and respect for, expertise and facts, allowing hate-mongering and buffoonery to be elected to high office by an unwavering, substantial minority who don't believe their candidate is capable of wrongdoing and, when faced with irrefutable evidence, ultimately don't care. The willfully ignorant and the morally bankrupt have always existed, but they've never felt so emboldened as they do now and they've never before had the organized agency to make their knee-jerk reactions public policy. Unfortunately, it's not just a matter of the disenfranchised taking up this mantle, because I think that would eventually run out of steam, but we also have a deep schism between the far right and the far left that continues to fuel the conflict, and this polarization leaves an ever-shrinking middle ground for civility and effective governance to take place. We can see similar division taking place all around the world, but the United States seems to be leading that charge.

"Idiocracy"

Oh I think we have always been stupid. It's just now that we have the Internet and cell phone video that you can SEE tbe stupid. It's just like police brutality; this shit has been going on FOREVER, it's just that now we have videos of it.

I’m afraid you are correct. Ever since Reagan I’ve seen an accelerating decline. The beast (government) is being starved to death. End of empire.

Most of the "great" civilizations on this rock have risen and fallen.
Granted, most of them managed to survive for several thousand years, but NOOOOO,
not us.
We couldn't even make it one thousand years.

As I said in another thread recently, I hate us, we suck.
Humans are the only species who are the architects of their own demise.
Given what we've done to this country, and the planet, we've got it coming.

Look at where our governing principles came from, in part... The old Roman Republic. Look what happened to them. The easiest way to say it is that stupid people are reproducing faster than smarter people. Watch the stupid, cornball movie Idiocracy... It is happening.

You have a solid 35%-40% of the American population who thinks Trump is their savior. They buy into lies, distortions and distractions so easily. When the stupid people reproduce at rate where these percentages move to 50%-55%... America, as we know it, will fall. We are already on our way.

I get the impression that it's happening in the UK as well. For example. In the late eighties one of our summer job employees was telling us how much she enjoyed 'analytical history' at school. This was a comparatively new subject at the time and dealt with things like primary and secondary evidence and where to find them. Several months or maybe a year later, a certain John Major at a Conservative Party conference, stated that he would return state education to basic values (the three Rs) and that history classes would return to rote learning of events and dates. It occurs to me that if you teach the general population how to analyze the past, they can also analyze the present and be more able to to spot when they are being fed B.S. And that, of course, would never do!!

Humanity is weird. Almost everyday I think to myself, “what weird times we’re living in.” And it’s not just the pandemic, it’s all these crazy people espousing their crazy beliefs. Where lines between political and religious has become so blurred, it’s cultish. I’m highly disappointed in the general masses at the moment. Why is America so anti-intellectual?

I think we're already there. In 2016, there were enough morons to vote Chump into the White House. I just hope the election will go better this year.

BIDEN / HARRIS 2020!

We're learning to become a global community.
Mistakes are being made.
The world gets smaller every day.

The corporatists have already extracted max wealth from the country and moved on. For over 30 years they (the corporations) have extracted over 21 trillion dollars out of the US economy while funding the growth of 3rd world counties for their cheap labor and resources.

The 50 year goal is to destabilize the American economics system to the point that once they've exploited other countries and the populations are now sufficiently educated that they demand equality and equal pay. That only then will corporations consider transplanting manufacturing and production jobs back into the US. However, with the increase in automation using AI and robotics the production jobs won't return.

Meanwhile the ability to advance and or grow the intellect of the nation will only come from the coasts while the whole of middle and southern states of America rots with ignorance and religosity in a endless feedback loop of misery and destitute squalor.

I don't think it's only an American thing. It looks more to me like a worldwide thing. Tyrants tend to control and concentrate the information at the top while dumbing down the masses.

I think we’re well on the road there.

Well this is rather sad thought. I do hope America and Americans manage to redeem the situation. You decide, I suppose, but so many feel it’s out of their hands and that’s part of a Worldwide problem

I heard the prediction many years ago when I was a freshman in college that the USA was already showing signs of going down like Rome. And now that we have Nero fiddling while Rome burns, I think the end might come sooner rather than later. But I have hope that this was just a horrible spell that we will bounce back from. but maybe I am being too optimistic.

We, and our resources would be carved up and redistributed around the world. If Putin’s goal was to shed doubt on democracy ..it’s currently working.

If we were capable of staying the course for longer than a couple years after electing a decent President & Congress, our chance for survival would be much improved..

It will . . . . China and Russia do not have even close to the the kind of idiots they make here, the people who control this country do not want people who think critically, people who can think critically are much more difficult to control.

Part could be the pervasive influence of religion that's basically anti science , or look at idocracy, morons out breeding intellectuals