The role of education in combating politics that clash with reality

How do we fight the storm of lies that culminated in the Capitol riot? First, we must identify the people who believe the lies and even take action because of them. Those most likely to buy into Trump’s rhetoric are non-college educated whites, a group that makes up much of his base. With 41% of eligible voters without a college education, this bloc is not insignificant, and their lack of tertiary education plays a big role in their political beliefs. A 2017 study found that lower levels of education correspond to belief in conspiracy theories—people with less education are more likely to feel powerless and seek out simple solutions for complex problems, two holes that conspiracy theories like QAnon fill.

The research paper explained that education strengthens problem-solving skills and analytic thinking, while conspiracy theories are formed from intuitive thinking, which relies on instincts rather than careful reasoning. Because they feel out of control and marginalized, people with lower levels of education seek dots to connect in order to make sense of reality, even if those connections are ridiculous or false. By rallying his supporters around just a few messages that he espouses constantly, Trump offers the illusion of simplicity in a world that can otherwise feel over-complicated. It’s no shock that he speaks to the public at a fourth-grade level—his messages are blunt and straightforward, meant to excite his supporters and offer them easy solutions in a complicated world.

This is not to place the entirety of blame on those who have received a bad education for their misguided belief in conspiracy theories and charlatans like Trump—rather, it is to highlight the systems that have failed these people and put them in the position to be manipulated. Children in low-income areas receive an inferior education, an inferior education leaves them more likely to fall into poverty, and the cycle continues, leaving large groups of people susceptible to lies because they haven’t been given the tools to combat them. Politicians like Trump tell them that their problems are because of people of color, immigrants, the media, foreign countries, and secret groups of powerful “elites,” when in reality it’s those same politicians that don’t improve their schools or do anything to lift them out of poverty.

This exploitation and deception by the same leaders who claim to be champions for the people is appalling. Professor John Keane draws connections between the behavior of politicians and that of gaslighters, writing, “Their point is to disorient and destabilize people. They want to harness people’s self-doubts, ruin their capacity for seeing the world ironically, destroy their capacity for making judgements, in order to drive them durably into submission.”

As we grapple with the Capitol riot from just a month ago, we have to examine not just the individual actors who stormed the Senate chamber, but also the politicians who stoked the fires of hatred and cried election fraud at every turn. We must hold accountable the government officials whose words drove people to plant bombs and smash windows trying to reach the Congressmen they were led to believe had to be assassinated. 

This hysteria is not normal. Investigating the intricacies of QAnon can be intriguing and even hilarious, but when you realize that potentially millions of people wholeheartedly believe in Democrat-led pedophile rings run out of a pizzeria basement, the state of our country begins to feel like a nightmare. Post-truth politics is frightening because it doesn’t conform to any rules, it doesn’t acknowledge its own absurdity, and it has devastating, tangible impacts on the world. We saw the dangers of the weaponization of lies on January 6th, scattered across the 2020 campaign trail, and throughout the COVID pandemic. We see it as the climate crisis worsens because world leaders delay action and say things like, “It’ll start getting cooler,” as hundreds of thousands of Americans die from a disease because many of our politicians refuse to believe in science, and as anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate crimes are committed because people have been driven to violence from the conspiracy theories they consume. It’s maddening to think about how we got here, about how common sense and facts have been thrown out the window in favor of things that sound like they belong in a badly-rated spy movie.

How do we fight this and keep the wildfire of false information from doing any more damage? One culprit to tackle is large social media sites who do little to combat fake information and whose algorithms drive people to extremes. But we also have to arm people with education, give them the intention and ability to seek the truth so that they’re not just being tossed around by whoever is the most charismatic. We can use education not only as a tool with which people can arm themselves to discern disinformation from reality, but also as an avenue through which we can prepare the next generation of leaders to have integrity and commit themselves to the truth.

In 50 years, high school students might read about this era and chuckle at its comical absurdity. But while we are still living through a time when people attempt to decipher the secret meaning of Trump’s tweets containing the letter “q” and how the colors of his tie relate to maritime flags, we must do all that we can to ensure that this dangerous period of post-truth is a blip in history, rather than a new normal.