Ya gotta wonder what sort of damage happened to them.

Was it damage during critical brain growth in the womb that prevented them from naturally transitioning from the concrete thinking of early childhood to the abstract thinking of adults beginning at adolescence that slowly develops into mature, critical thinking?

Or sometime later with overwhelming exposure to societal ignorance, pigheaded thinking, and a rote-style education based on robotic repetion rather than an enlightened education geared towards developing critical thinking skills and thinking for themselves?

Most "red" states are terrified of enlightened, "liberal" education programs that teach critical thinking skills and encourage questioning rather than accepting the status quo.

Perhaps it scares them that their children might reject their philosophies and deeply held beliefs about the world? I suspect that is why they ban books and train children to be round pegs in round holes, forcing the squares and triangles to fit in or fail?

It is typically the square and triangular pegs who improvise and create. That's why enlightened education has round, square, and triangular "holes" within their education programs to allow children to grow into informed, intelligent, and more successful adults who are capable of critical thinking rather than crowd-following.

Teens allowed to think for themselves fully develop metacognition — the ability to "think about thinking" and evaluate their own internal logic.

They grow a much greater and more mature capacity to reason about theoretical concepts, future possibilities, abstract ideals (like justice or freedom), and "what-if" scenarios quite unlike their stifled peers forced into rote-style education systems that reject critical thinking and questioning the status quo.

Rote style education suffocates the natural growth of critical thinking.

During the early teens the shift from concrete thinking to abstract thinking (and early critical thinking skills) correlates directly with structural changes in the frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex. That is the region responsible for executive function, impulse control, and relational reasoning.

If students are rewarded with good grades and praise for parroting the rote learning that fits into the round hole, but "punished" for thinking outside of the box with poor grades and rejection, many will fail to develop a system within for true critical thinking and resistance to societal pressures to conform.

I honestly think that is what happens too often in lousy schools and those with rigid teaching that rewards parroting rather than developing critical thinking.

Edit: Stuff them all into an echo chamber named Fox "news" and "truth (actually lies) social" and you've got a perfect storm for low information voters who don'thave a clue how ignorant they actually are. Add trump's endless lies about his claimed victim-hood, enemies within, and fake news and they're his for life... Until the sh!t hits THEIR fans and life becomes so difficult that they FINALLY start questioning everything they've been brainwashed to believe.

THEN you’ve got some seriously angry voters compelled to make the liars PAY!

Sadly, let another scoundrel liar enter the arena and they'll tumble right back down into the rabbit hole they already escaped once. Without actual critical thinking skills, they'll fail to recognize it once again. But that's a worry for another day.

Sorry for getting off track here, but I fear that is the cause of so many people voting against their own interests and failing to even recognize the gaslighting environment they constantly breathe in.