Our education system has been shown lacking. Instead of turning out “critical thinking minds”, our educators have instead indoctrinated students who cannot think for themselves. Parents have unwittingly (?) played into this by turning over the raising of their children to strangers. Beginning with infant day care all the way through after school care, they are ignorant of just what is filling their child’s head. Once in college, parents aren’t even able to get the grades of their children despite them being the payor. The result is whole generations of now, voters, who cannot discern fact from fiction.
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are now bonafide news sources to these generations. The reliance on social media for information gives rise to how some will vote, among other important issues. The echo chamber of these platforms drums mantras that eventually land in the ”fact” column for the consumer. Friends share the same missives. “I read it on FB” becomes the mark of credibility.
Even so-called fact checking sites and presentations on mass media are suspicious. News this day requires a high degree of skepticism. Indeed, in order to truly understand the facts around any particular issue, one must research multiple sources and use critical thinking to wade through the chaff to get to the facts; something most Americans eschew as too difficult and time consuming. Hence, they leave it to those who know they can feed the masses any blather and make it into a science project. Even science is now up for interpretation!
Current Day Publius 