The education system in the United States isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as the powerful and the billionaires intended. “Keep them stupid and poor” because uneducated people are easier to control and manipulate.
Being poor means citizens are less likely to demand a raise or go on strike because they need their jobs to survive. The fact that Trump’s base consists of the voter “bucket” they call “uneducated” or “non-college educated” is one of the reasons Republicans celebrate Donald Trump as the leader of the GOP.
Donald Trump attracts voters who are easily manipulated. They’re more likely to respond to culture war issues the Party uses to distract from the fact that they’re doing nothing to improve voters’ lives. Republicans do one thing when they’re in power—give tax cuts to the rich.
The Party uses slogans and buzzwords, hoping voters don’t recognize the fearmongering. (DEI, CRT, trans, fake news, MAGA, MAHA, and the list goes on)
Donald Trump frequently brought up the concept of “energy independence” during the 2024 Presidential campaign. It’s not based in reality and claiming it’s achieved by extracting more fossil fuels is false.
Relying on finite resources that harm the planet and accelerate climate change is a mistake.
Republican politicians have politicized everything they can, from school shootings, to climate change, and what some consider to be the worst—public health. The worldwide COVID pandemic should have been a time that the country came together and fought a common “enemy.”
Instead, Republicans blamed COVID on Democrats. Any information that came from experts at the CDC, infectious disease specialists, or scientists from around the world was mocked and ignored.
It’s difficult to understand why right-wing politicians and the conservative media ecosystem fought so hard to dispute every fact about the pandemic. Especially with their President in the White House at the time.
Someday the COVID pandemic will be studied and perhaps historians can explain the Republican’s reason for being on the side of a virus that killed over 7 million people worldwide—over 1.2 million deaths in the U.S. alone.
Education is another area where Republicans have successfully spread propaganda, lies, and enacted their plan to “keep them stupid.” It’s my hope that people will read this or become inspired by the introduction and search for more information to learn the truth about what the powerful and the billionaires are doing.
It’s more important now than ever before when there are billionaires running the United States government.
Contents
Keep Them Stupid: Energy Independence
Big oil executives love that people believe energy independence is achieved by more drilling. Energy independence with fossil fuels isn’t even possible. The only path to true energy independence is with clean energy. That’s why they mount such a strong opposition to climate change legislation and their bogeyman, “The Green New Deal.”
Trump’s response to economic concerns on the campaign trail was “Drill, baby drill!” He insinuated that by drilling for more oil, the United States would become rich and gas prices would go down. The Republican Party in general referenced “energy independence” constantly during the 2024 Presidential election.
MAGA has been conditioned to believe that the country and its citizens are the ones who benefit from oil and natural gas extraction. Their lack of understanding was exploited by Trump’s “Drill, baby drill” slogan.
What Actually Happens When the United States Allows More Fossil Fuel Extraction?
It’s important to note that the Biden administration was drilling and producing more oil over the 4-years President Biden was in office than ever before. The constant complaint from Republicans that “we just need to drill more to become energy independent” was based on a myth.
From reporting by Politico during the Biden Administration, 2023:
“Energy experts caution that while the political slogan [energy independence] may be simple, becoming a truly energy independent country is not, writes Scott Waldman. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, it depends on how you define the term.
If energy independence means the country is producing more energy than it consumes, then both leaders have achieved it. While Biden rarely talks up his efforts to produce oil and natural gas, the nation’s output under his leadership continues to smash records. And starting under Trump’s tenure, the U.S. began annually producing “more crude oil than any country, ever,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration — though even that achievement stemmed from the fracking boom that began during the George W. Bush administration and roared to life under President Barack Obama.
Still, the nation has continued to import foreign fuels as well. So if energy independence means no imports, then neither president has done it. According to that definition, the country hasn’t been energy independent for more than 75 years.
That’s in part because the oil the U.S. produces isn’t the oil the country’s infrastructure prefers. The nation’s refineries were largely built before the U.S. fracking boom and are designed to process heavier crude oil typically found in Russia and the Middle East. The lighter stuff found in the U.S. is often cheaper to export.
And even if a country produces more than it consumes, oil is part of a global market. That means the fuel will still be exposed to international supply and demand disruptions that affect global prices, said Harrison Fell at North Carolina State University.
Energy produced from solar rays and wind, however, is not vulnerable to global price shocks. So reducing the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels is a key, and often overlooked, step toward self-sufficiency, Fell said.
In that regard, the Biden administration has what to brag about. Biden’s $369 billion climate law has allocated a record amount of funding for expanding the nation’s clean energy infrastructure.”
Convincing MAGA that clean energy brings true energy independence is just exhausting to think about. And honestly, it feels hopeless. They have been fed a steady diet of climate denialism, lies that the “Green New Deal” is the worst thing that could happen to America, and that windmills are really bad (they also cause cancer and kill whales, according to Donald Trump).
Keep Them Stupid: Communist, Marxist, Socialist Democrats
Billionaire donors use right-wing politicians, podcasters, and conservative media to get Republican voters to hate Democratic politicians and even Democratic voters. You can’t “keep them stupid” if there’s a chance they might hear the truth from the other party or the “fake news” media.
The way to eliminate the chance that could happen is simple: Make them distrust the media and not just distrust, but hate the politicians and Americans who are trying to make their lives better.
I believe the reason Trump supporters are so combative in dialogue with anyone on the Left comes from the constant refrain, “Democrats hate you and want to take all of your guns.” You’d think that after being told that Democrats were going to take your guns during every election for years—and then they don’t—would make you realize it’s not true.
Yet, it’s something you still hear GOP politicians telling their voters to this day. “Liberals hate you and want to ruin your life and force you to drink Starbucks coffee every day.” “You’ll be forced to drink Starbucks coffee every day” is another common lie. First of all, why do they assume conservatives don’t drink Starbucks? Second, why is drinking Starbucks coffee a bad thing?
Energy independence isn’t the only myth they’ve been conditioned to believe. “Democrats are Communists” is another. Someone should count the number of times a Fox News anchor uses the labels marxist, Communist, and socialist to describe a Democratic politician during a broadcast.
Read Next
MAGA doesn’t know what they don’t know, and Republican politicians and right-wing media use it to their advantage. They rely on, and exploit the uneducated viewer. This is why you’ll often hear the criticism that Fox News and other right-wing “news” shows don’t respect their viewers.
GOP politicians constantly disrespect their constituents by lying to them. They throw around the labels communist and marxist knowing a lot of people don’t really know what they mean.
Let’s kick that misinformation trend in the butt right now by defining them:
Communism:: A political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society.
Marxism: A 19th century social, economic, and political philosophy developed by Karl Marx. It analyzes the impact of the ruling class on workers, and the resulting unequal distribution of wealth and privilege. It also examines the struggle between the capitalist and working classes. Marxism’s basic principles include the idea that history is a record of class struggle, and that society is increasingly defined by the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
I don’t see how the idea of someone having either one of those ideological beliefs is scary and dangerous. The Right has attached a dangerous, evil connotation onto both political ideologies.
Communism was attributed to the Soviet Union for so long and they are an adversaryvof the United States, so I understand why that might worry someone. The modern Republican Party is pro-Putin and pro-China, so calling someone a Communist should no longer strike fear into the hearts of conservatives.
Regardless, I encourage everyone to learn more about both ideologies and then generate your opinion of someone who ascribes to either one on your own, without outside influence or opinion. I promise it will be very liberating to make your own choices about what to think and how to feel.
In the future, look up anything Republican politicians or media start to fearmonger about, rather than accepting what they tell you as fact.
A lot of anxiety, worry, and time wasted protesting school board meetings could have been avoided by taking 5 minutes to look into Critical Race Theory (CRT). Parents protesting it in their child’s school would’ve learned that it’s a legal theory taught at the college level in law school.
It’s certainly not taught in elementary, middle, or high schools. It was often maliciously and deceptively defined as “elementary school teachers talking about race and slavery.” The elites fooled so many people with that one.
Keep Them Stupid: Public Health
The lies about COVID being a “Democratic hoax,” Ted Cruz on Fox News telling viewers, “COVID is meant to hurt President Trump’s re-election and “After the election, I guarantee COVID will disappear” were two of the lies that stood out most at the time.
Fox News has been sued over their coverage of the pandemic, including a suit filed by the daughter of a man who died after watching the channel and trusting them to provide accurate information to keep him safe. They intentionally spread misinformation that resulted in deaths. If we had the means of collecting the data, the exact number of deaths they caused would be substantial.
Imagine the amount of evil that has to exist inside someone for them to know the truth and the facts, and yet provides false information and advocates for people to distrust the experts, scientists, and the doctors, knowing people would die as a result. Those people were also vaccinated as they told viewers not to get the COVID vaccine.
No amount of money could convince me to lie, causing the deaths of Americans during a public health emergency. These people are sick and psychotic.
Public health was the one part of the “Keep Them Stupid” agenda that made people extremely angry. The majority of the country was getting information from trusted, authoritative sources like the CDC and their medical provider.
They were receiving daily updates from trusted news organizations (mainstream media might be biased, but they would never spread knowingly false information to the public in the middle of a deadly pandemic).
The majority of people were watching interviews with doctors who specialized in infectious diseases and pandemics. Fox News found doctors willing to lie for money or they dug up the very few doctors who believed COVID conspiracy theories.
Another trick used by politicians and the media was calling the removal of a tweet spreading false information during a public health emergency (something that violates the rules on most private social media platforms) with “conservatives are being censored.”
Right-wing influencers and voters posted the majority of inaccurate information and conspiracy theories, so it was easy for them to say, “Look! They’re censoring conservatives!” “Why aren’t they censoring people on the left?”
Because people on the left weren’t spreading misinformation. If they were, their posts were also removed. This is one of those times where critical thinking would have destroyed the GOP’s false censorship claims.
Quick Fact: Social media platforms are private companies. Private companies make their own decisions and their own rules for what is allowed. Remember the bakery that didn’t want to make a wedding cake for a gay wedding? Even though the bakery was found to be breaking anti-discrimination laws, Conservatives were on the side of the bakery. Critical thinking would tell you that your belief that business owners get to make the rules for their business applies to social media platforms, too. The First Amendment provides protection from the government punishing or censoring you for speech. Private companies aren’t included in the First Amendment protections, so no private business, including social media platforms can violate your “right to free speech.”
Republicans in Congress received daily briefings on the deadly COVID pandemic. They knew how dangerous it was, they knew how many people were dying (so many in New York they had to bring in refrigerated trucks to use as morgues), they knew that hundreds of thousands—potentially millions—of Americans were going to die.
At that point it becomes even more inexcusable for them to lie about a deadly virus while downplaying it as some sort of made-up conspiracy created by Democratic politicians to stop Trump from winning the 2020 election.
I hope that after Donald Trump’s loss, when we learned that the reason people voted against him was because of how poorly he handled COVID, that Republicans had at least a flash of regret and the realization that if they, the media ecosystem, and the President had simply been serious and rallied the country together in the fight against a common “enemy,” he might have won a second term.
By intentionally spreading lies, misinformation, and politicizing a public health emergency—a global pandemic—they ruined his chances of winning the election, and caused a lot of needless deaths in the process.
Keep Them Stupid: Education
Why do you think Republicans attack higher education, teachers and recently, the entire Department of Education? It has nothing to do with the fearmongering excuses they provide. Instead, their attack on education comes from the long-standing agenda called Keep Them Stupid and Poor, referring to the working-class. “The population is much easier to control and manipulate if they are poor and uneducated.”
Another tactic used by Republicans is the concept of “school choice” and the “voucher system.” They tell people that it’s about parents having a right to choose where their child goes to school. What they don’t tell them is that when the voucher pays private schools that money is being taken away from public schools.
Private schools also have eligibility requirements and restrictions. These requirements could include restrictions that limit vouchers to students who meet certain income thresholds or to special populations of students, such as military families, foster care students, students with disabilities, or students from chronically low-performing schools.
In one state, no disabled students were eligible due to a lack of “resources to accommodate their needs.”
That means disabled students will be attending public schools that just lost all of the funding to the billionaires who own these private schools and the Republican politicians helping them commit the “robbery.” Studies have also found that low-income students were found ineligible for admission.
While the intention of school vouchers is often said to be to provide educational opportunities for low-income students, in reality, many of these programs can exclude them due to things like limited funding, high private school tuition costs, and potential discriminatory admission practices at participating private schools, meaning many low-income students may “not be eligible” to use them.
Voucher programs funnel more money to private schools, causing the public school system to suffer from underfunding and eventually a total collapse. Once that happens, they’ll terminate the voucher programs so only the families with money can afford to continue their children’s education at private schools, while the average American family loses access to education for their children.
That’s what will eventually happen—whether they intentionally stop the program or it ends after funding runs out is unclear. Keep in mind that our public school systems are “failing and broken” in the richest country in the world.
If our politicians wanted to, and their donors allowed it, they could easily provide free Community College, universal healthcare and a well-funded, thriving public education system rivaling what China has.
That fact alone is proof that they don’t want us to be educated. Republican politicians hate China! Hello, TikTok ban! They would love nothing more than to kick China’s ass with an amazing education system.
But they can’t. The billionaires, the corporations in need of workers, and politicians obsessed with staying in power aren’t going to do something that jeopardizes their Keep Them Stupid agenda.
Ever wondered why education seems broken? It’s not a flaw—it’s the plan. From underfunded schools to financial illiteracy, the system is designed to keep people obedient, misinformed, and struggling. Who benefits from this? The wealthy elite and those in power.
Our government is run by billionaires right now as we speak. A lot of America is fighting against it because their eyes are open, meaning they’re aware of the agenda. Elon Musk can’t trick them into ignoring the robbery of the American people. He’s doing a million different things at once in order to generate news and media attention to distract.
Those in power fear educated Americans who are able to think critically and question the actions of people in charge. Americans who are wide awake aren’t gorging themselves on the Fox News diet of propaganda, lies, and misinformation about what’s happening.
In the end, our only hope is that more citizens are going to wake up to what is happening in Washington D.C. and inside a White House filled with billionaires and oligarchs. Donald Trump isn’t there to drain the swamp. He moved the swamp in with him.
They are currently doing everything they can to keep people distracted as they are about to commit the largest robbery in history—taking from the working-class and most vulnerable among us and giving it to the richest among us. Corporations have bribed our politicians to the point that we are now a government/country under corporate rule.
Final thought: If DOGE was serious about cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, they would cut the billions of dollars in subsidies we give oil and gas companies that generate billions in revenue each year.
He would also cut taxpayer money pharmaceutical companies receive to fund the research and development of drugs. They take American taxpayers’ money and then turn around and charge Americans the highest prices in the world.
What DOGE is doing has nothing to do with finding wasteful spending, and everything to do with protecting the companies Musk owns and the contracts he was awarded by the same government he now controls.
The oligarchy is here.
