Comfortable people make for a stupid society. 

Thanks to the break throughs by science and society in making people lives more comfortable. Lazy thinking now prevails. Instead of people seeking the actual truth. They seek comfortable lies to back up their conformation bias's. Reality will kick in at some point. But not after a lot of stupid have died.

This is not just an American problem but seems to be universal in English speaking world. One other thing universal in the English speaking world is the Rupert Murdoch press which delights in tapping into this comfort lie bias.