I've spent some time studying the propaganda techniques that are being used by propagandists (Russian TASS, Tucker Carlson, etc) to persuade gullible people that the United States is building biological weapons in Ukraine.
The conclusion I've reached is that the greatest inequality in this country isn't income inequality. The single largest (and I think, most damaging) divide in this country is in basic education.
I don't mean the divide between PhD recipients and high-school graduates....
I mean the divide between people who have some grasp of the concept of evidence (and the basic science and epistemological education to be able to think about that evidence) and those that clearly do not.
I mean the divide between those who have some basic tools with which to evaluate the world around them and some sense of the limits of their knowledge, and those who are seemingly unaware that they have such limits or that such tools exist.
From an institutional/systemic standpoint, I'm not sure what can be done about it, other than to teach epistemology from Grade 1 onward.
I'm persuaded that this divide between people who have the basic tools with which to evaluate reality and people who only occasionally stumble across reality by sheer coincidence is among the gravest threats facing our society.