Most of us have tried to sit through the earlier Presidential debates and honestly, it wasn’t easy because there wasn’t much substance. I recently read an article talking about a Carnegie Mellon University study that did a readability analysis of the 2016 US Presidential campaign speeches. I thought the findings were interesting in that Donald Trump scored the lowest, he spoke at a 5th-grade level while Bernie Sanders came in at an 11th-grade level.
I’m not sure what conclusions I can draw from the results but my gut says Donald Trump is connecting with the masses because he speaks on their grade level. According to education experts the average US citizen reads or understands on average at an 8th-grade level. So it makes sense that people gravitate to Trump because his message resonates or is clearer to more Americans.
So what this says to me is our educational system is failing our democracy! Because an educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people. Our survival as a FREE people is at stake people — wake up!