Question above is pretty blunt but was doing a study for a college course and came across that stat. How is that possible? My high school sucked but I was well equipped even with that sub standard level of education for college. Obviously income is a thing but to think 1 out of 5 American adults is categorized as illiterate is…astounding. Now poor media literacy I get, but not this. Edit: this was from a department of education report from 2022. Just incase people are curious where that comes from. It does also specify as literate in English so maybe not as grim as I thought.
Because the government, federal and state level (especially conservative) hate public education and fight to defund it as much as possible. Largely because an educated populace is a dangerous populace. Especially when your political platform relies on identity politics, culture wars, cheating, screwing over the poor, opposing minorities, religious fundamentalism, and any other regressive, oppressive bullshit you can think of. They want stupid voters that they can point at “the enemy” and pit against each other to distract them from facts, all so they can stay rich and powerful.
It’s because a lot of conservatives believe in a really screwed up, masochistic, bastardized version of Christianity that prioritizes vengeance, punishment, and anger. It ignores the love, kindness, acceptance, and mercy (ie the actual teachings of Jesus) that make society work well.
So, when kids come home with these new ideas about kindness and acceptance, because being kind to a gay classmate is a great way to demonstrate the love real Christianity teaches and society values, the parents freak out. They push to ban books, fire teachers, and move their kids to private schools that more match their hate filled, divisive worldview. Education polluted their child with abnormal, liberal indoctrination, like being kind, empathetic, and accepting of others.
I an attempt to steer their children back to their core values of hate and divisiveness, they lash out. Any pushback the parents feel in response becomes persecution, because of course “the world” would disagree with them. They’re the TRUE Christians afterall. So they isolate in ecochambers, and they get more hateful. Any difference of opinion is met with derision and just simply validates their position. And despite being the TRUE Christians, or REAL conservatives, they become less Christian and less conservative every day, instead just becoming these weird, evil, empty husks of people with no real values or ideals outside of hate.