Donald Trump’s great circus has begun its 2024 tour. The show’s main clown said Saturday that he intends to win the presidential election “for the third time.”
Despite this lie (he did not win in 2020), Trump has a real chance of winning the presidential elections next November.
Several factors explain Trump’s popularity: his image as a strong leader in front of an increasingly senile Joe Biden; the association of the Democratic Party with the intersectional whims of a certain left; the inability of Democratic leaders to stem waves of illegal immigrants; the racism of a part of the American population in the face of the minoritization of Whites, expected around 2040.
But even Trump’s most fervent supporters would have to admit that his rhetoric is increasingly undemocratic and misleading.
He is showing signs of early senile dementia. He is becoming more and more inconsistent in his comments.
Yet almost half of Americans continue to believe in him. For what?
High illiteracy
One of the most underestimated factors driving support for Trump is the high rate of illiteracy. About 21% of Americans are unable to read and write. 54% of Americans have a level of understanding of the English language equivalent to that of sixth graders or lower.
In other words, only 46% of Americans are likely to have sufficient language proficiency to fully understand Trump’s words.
Surprisingly, 77% of Black Americans have a moderate to high level of reading comprehension. This level drops to 66% among Hispanics and 65% among whites.
Dunces on a global scale
Globally, the United States ranks far behind Canada and European countries which have literacy rates close to 99%. The American literacy rate places it at the level of countries like Iraq, Tunisia or the Congo.
Being more educated does not necessarily mean voting for Democrats. But generally speaking, those who have a university degree, and who are therefore supposed to understand the language better, vote between 60% and 70% in favor of the Democrats, regardless of their religious, racial, etc. group.
All these statistics are terrifying.
They indicate that a large proportion of the American population is not intellectually equipped to understand political debates, unlike voters in most other democracies. This important segment of the American population tends to vote for Trump.
They also show that in our age where social networks cross borders, a large part of the American population is particularly susceptible to being manipulated by external propaganda, such as that which comes from China or Russia.
In short, American democracy is threatened by the serious deficiencies of the education system in the United States.