These people are going to be the leaders, the educated elite of this country?

Always worthy of a few laughs, if properly cherry-picked

yikes!

I was reading something a week or so ago that talked about similar surveys done around the time of WWII and the same sort of ignorance abounded.

Part of the problem is that history is often very badly taught in our schools, and the popular culture the young people are immersed in have no connection to actual history.

I can remember when I was in high school being only vaguely aware of who the vice-president was, and I never paid attention to who my Representatives and Senators were. I was all but unaware I also had a state Rep and a state Senator, and much of the time couldn't have told you who my governor was.

In recent years I've gotten much more politically aware and active, but for kids on the cusp of adulthood, forget it.

Which isn't to say we shouldn't try somehow to make them more aware and caring, but I haven't a clue how to go about doing that.

We all live inside some sort of bubble. All of us. For some it's a small bubble, for others a much larger one. My bubble tends to exclude almost anything about sports and most reality shows. If someone had come up to me on the street and asked me about the Civil War, our vice-president, the year we declared our Independence and from whom, I'd have known those things. What show Snookie is on? Nope. But then, I'm 66 years old and have always loved history.