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.
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.”
Just thinking about trying to convince MAGA that clean energy brings true energy independence makes me anxious and exhausted. And honestly, it feels hopeless.
They’ve been fed a steady diet of climate denialism, lies about the “Green New Deal” being the worst thing that could happen to America, and windmills being 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 their voters.
You can’t “keep them stupid” if there’s a chance they might hear the truth from the other party or from the “fake news” media.
They eliminate any chance of that happening by making the Republican voters distrust the media and not only distrust, but hate the politicians and Americans trying to make their lives better.
Yet, it’s something you’ll still hear GOP politicians tell their voters in 2026. “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?
I believe Trump supporters are combative in dialogue with anyone on the Left because they’ve been told over and over that, “Democrats hate you and want to take all of your guns.”
You’d think after constantly hearing how “Democrats are going to take away your guns” from every Republican political candidate for years—you would realize it’s a lie.
Each time there has been a Democrat in the White House, nobody came to the door demanding they hand over all of their guns.
Energy independence isn’t the only myth Republican voters have been conditioned to believe. “Democrats are [socialists] [Marxists] Communists” is another.
Someone should count the number of times a Fox News anchor uses the terms marxist, Communist, and socialist to describe a Democratic politician in one broadcast.
MAGA doesn’t know what they don’t know, and Republican politicians and right-wing media use that to their advantage. They rely on, and exploit uneducated viewers.
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 that someone might have 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 adversary of 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 the three ideologies (technically two ideologies and a philosophy (Marxism).
Then form your own 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 with a 5-minute look into the claim that elementary school children were taught Critical Race Theory (CRT) .
Parents protesting the course being taught at their child’s school would’ve learned that CRT a legal theory taught at the college level in law school.
It certainly isn’t taught in elementary school. It’s not part of the curriculum in middle or high schools, either.
CRT was often maliciously and deceptively defined as “elementary school teachers talking about race and slavery.” GOP politicians fooled a lot of conservatives with that lie.
Keep Them Stupid: Public Health
The lies about COVID being a “Democratic hoax.”
Ted Cruz on Fox News told viewers, “COVID is meant to hurt President Trump’s re-election and “After the election, I guarantee COVID will disappear.”
The lack of data and information on how the unknown new virus worked made it tough on public health professionals, physicians, and scientists.
They were all trying to offer Americans the best guidance to help save lives, but the changes to details about the virus and conflicting, changing messaging about how to stay safe caused people to distrust what they were told.
Not only that, there were conspiracy theories flooding social media about COVID-19 (its survival rate, post-infection immunity, herd immunity, fake death toll numbers, and the wild claim that doctors at hospitals were listing the cause of death for everyone who died as COVID because they received money from the government based on that number.)
What?!
Then there the were conspiracy theories about the COVID vaccine to contend with.
The pandemic was such a frustrating time. I often thought about how many lives could’ve been saved if the public had just listened to the CDC and their family doctor, followed safety guidance, and got the vaccine as soon as it was available.
It all goes back to my earlier comment about critical thinking being a requirement in public education.
It’s also frustrating that it doesn’t look like anything has been done after that fiasco to build trust in our public health department (After this administration, please), real attempts to educate the public about WHY the data and guidance changed, how vaccines work, etc.
IDEA: Netanyahu and the Israel lobby pays conservative influencers to spread talking points and encourage support for Israel. Why couldn’t HHS, CDC, NIH, contract with those influencers to spread factual information and the truth about anything that starts to spawn conspiracy theories? Mainstream media won’t reach the people that need it, Fix News is busy spreading misinformation and fueling conspiracy theories to be of any help… Just some food for thought.
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 fear monger excuses they provide.
Instead, their attack on education comes from the long-standing philosophy that a population is easier to control if the people are poor and uneducated. The GOP agenda based on that philosophyis called Keep Them Stupid and Poor.
Another tactic used by Republicans is the concept of “school choice” and the “voucher system.” They tell people it’s about a parents’ right to choose which school their child attends.
What they don’t tell you is when vouchers pays privatvouchers, that money is taken away from public schools funds.
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 currently being run by billionaires. A lot of Americans are fighting against it because their eyes are open, meaning they’re aware of this agenda.
Elon Musk can’t trick them into ignoring the robbery happening to 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 power.
Americans who are wide awake aren’t gorging themselves on a Fox News diet of propaganda, lies, and misinformation.
In the end, our only hope is more citizens waking up to what is happening in Washington D.C. and in 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’re about to commit the largest robbery in history—taking from the working-class and most vulnerable among us and giving it to the richest.
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 $30 billion in subsidies we give oil and gas companies each year when they make billions in profit each year.
He would also halt our taxpayer dollars going to pharmaceutical companies to fund the research and development of drugs.
They take American taxpayers’ money and then turn around and charge Americans the highest prices for medications 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 entered the chat.
