Letter to the Editor: It's the Republicans, stupid

[Garrett78]

24. It's the ignorance, stupid.

The Republican Party can only do what it does because of how stunningly ignorant the US population is. Actually, the GOP wouldn't even exist if not for said ignorance.

The next Democratic president should declare that US ignorance is a national emergency. It's time to shine a spotlight on this massive, massive problem, highlighting the fact that tens of millions of people subscribe to utter nonsense. I'm not kidding. The next Dem president should put together an official task force to tackle US ignorance. This could be announced at the new president's first SOTU address. The task force would visit schools, analyze the media and interview people from all over the country, and produce a report, including recommendations on what needs to be done. Hopefully that would spur a conversation (about, for instance, how an embarrassingly large proportion of people in the US don't accept the reality of evolution, as compared to populations in other democratic nations). And maybe being blunt about the fact that people are subscribing to nonsense will at least get a portion of the population to strive to be less ignorant. If nothing else, we can have a positive influence on future generations by prioritizing education reform and media reform.

Until we lessen ignorance, we'll keep spinning our wheels on climate change, systemic racism, equal pay for women, wealth inequality, health care, etc., etc., etc.