Stephan A. Schwartz,  Columnist  -  Explore Journal Stephan: The lack of literacy and numeracy in American adults is becoming an increasing problem undermining maintaining  U.S. democracy. If you can't read and comprehend a standard newspaper report, or if you can't understand basic statements about the economy, you can't really understand why democracy is so important to our society. Authoritarianism, where someone like criminal Trump claims  to know how to fix everything, if you put him in power seems a simpler easier solution to the country's problems than the reality of the actual complexities. As the Trump christofascists (TCP) try to dismantle public fact-based education, this problem is just going to get worse. It is yet another failure on the part of the U.S. Congress, and Red state legislatures as well, I am sorry to say, both the Trump and Biden administrations and corporate media. The SchwartzReport tracks emerging trends that will affect the world,particularly the United States. For EXPLORE it focuses on matters of health inthe broadest sense of that term, including medical issues, changes in thebiosphere, technology, and policy considerations, all of which will shape ourculture and our lives. Something very insidious is going on in our world today. Somethingthat is directly eating away American democracy. I am speaking here ofadult illiteracy, dropping education levels amongst children, and theweaponization of misinformation trends that collectively have combined to create an alternate reality with alternate facts. When the Founders created the First Amendment in 1791 they understood thepower of misinformation. Someone spreading a false rumor in a bar, aprinter distributing flyers filled with misinformation. A charismaticspeaker spewing lies to a crowd in a square. The amendment’s wordingitself reveals their thinking. “Congress shall make no law respecting anestablishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; orabridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of thepeople peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for aredress [...]

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