A recent study of public perception found the US to be the second least informed nation out of the 14 studied (only Italy was worse). What's even more interesting to me is how our misinformation is biased. We overestimated (by a factor of 8!) how many teens get pregnant. We overestimated by a factor of 15 how many Muslims there are in the country. We had the most UNDERestimation of how many Christians there are in this country. We estimated that 56% were Christian, while the real number is 78%. What that seems to indicate is that 22% of the Christian population thinks we are less Christian than we really are. (Christianity is under attack! The war against Christmas!) We also overestimated by a factor of 2.5 how many immigrants we have in this country.
Take a look at the opinions expressed in the poll. According to the American people, we are a nation with ridiculously high numbers of teen moms, Muslims, atheists and immigrants. What political party does that sound like? No wonder the Republicans did so well in the last election.
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