That would seem to indicate that there's a major problem
with your educational and communications systems, and perhaps the US needs to fix it in a big way, because the US is not going to do well when everyone's making decisions based on bad reasoning and bad information.
To go back to the root, Socrates pointed out that he knew more than his interlocutors because at least he was aware that he didn't know anything. That's generally a good starting point to go about learning something, and if that lesson's not being inculcated at a young age then something's really wrong with the culture and education.