As with all vices, the fundamental problem is one of demand: rubbish is accepted as enthusiastically as gold in the marketplace of ideas because the only thing almost anyone wants is anything that will support a purely subjectively derived point of view. There is no solution for that problem.

Look at the increase in the number of students being educated in schools located in churches. I doubt that critical thinking is emphasized in their curriculum. Religious 'apologetics' is all about finding any 'evidence' whatsoever that might be used to support a pre-existing conclusion. Add that to the influence of self-proclaimed 'Christians' in public school systems and the influence of other theologies and ideology on the rest of the population, and I think we arrive at the source of the increase in arrogant ignorance in the U.S.