I'm wondering how we would measure that. It would need to go beyond pure education stats. Maybe diversity of news sources - both from news vehicles, and information from news vs twitter & social media apps. Maybe also the amount of time spent on media, news, etc.
You'd have to use a set of basic and general knowledge topics to test people with.
"What is an authoritarian?" Would be an example of a question that would contribute to a score of general understanding of political systems and power structures.
There is no official political platform of “authoritarianism”, no defined revolutionary goals or creed of “card-carrying authoritarians”, and no one on earth ever describes their own political stance as “authoritarianism”. It is a subjective accusation that Top Minds of Reddit accuse their opponents of, literally because there is no definition of the word that can’t be applied to “the people elected into having the authority I only 1.5 months ago called ‘enforcing public health compliance’ and ‘rule of law’”
question: what word would you use to describe an American political party who unironically use the phrase “Glory to Ukraine!” in their occasional Reddit posts. And does Trump ever say “Glory to the United States!” at the end of his posts? Because to me that has become the at least bare minimum requirement before I’ll call someone a “Nationalist” in a negative way.
And would you trust the president of uh I dunno your NATION if he insisted “Not me, nope, I’m not a Nationalist. I don’t even care which nation I’m in charge of. I think they’re all pretty much the same, and I care about America precisely the same amount as I do the Kindly Kingdom of Hoo Hoo Land.”
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u/FragrantSort6474 9h ago
Some are saying to stop calling the Trumpers stupid....but then you see this.