Per Tim McNamara:
We have become a nation in which stupidity
is held up as a virtue and enforced ignorance is seen as good policy.

I wouldn't sign on to language that extreme, but I think you have
hit on a major reason why the USA is on the long downslide: an
even-more-than-usually ignorant and non-critical electorate.

It's easy to blame politicians, but they're just doing what
politicians do: try to get elected and re-elected. It's the
electorate's sanctioning of the politicians - of whichever party
- that is the root cause.
--
PeteCresswell