you are out first with casey burgat. caller: hi.k, i'm listening to what you are saying, and here are a couple of thoughts. first of all, we do not teach social studies anymore in a lot of these schools. and people don't know where to search for trusted information. then they don't trust, you know, documented information from government sources. we have 21% or one out of five people in the country that are actually illiterate. they cannot read. and then you have the project 2025 that wants to eliminate the department of education and replace it with people that don't even have a teaching degree. and there's one more thought. i remember, and people can google this, trump said to a group of his rally people that he "loves the poorly educated." this is what we are dealing with. thanks for listening. host: that is barbara in pennsylvania. casey burgat? guest: barbara, thank you. you are right on. we do teach social studies, but what we don't teach is civics. it's one thing to know the organization of congress and the house vs. the senat

host: casey burgat joins us now.author of the new book "we hold these 'truths'," with, you will notice, "truths" in quotation marks. with the subtitle "how to spot the myths that are holding america back." what are mixed or even outright lies? guest: where do we begin? i appreciate the emphasis on the close. there are a lot of myths we fall for on accident, and sometimes they are put on is on purpose by politicians, the lobbyists, they all matter. so the myths are premeeting our systems from the courts, campaign finance, what members of congress dukem of the filibuster term limits come as a wide list. where do you want to start? we will jump in. host: give us an example of one of the myths. guest: term limits, to kick out members of congress after a certain period of time, just will empower the wrong people, right? if you are frustrated that the president is to power, lobbyists are to power, term limits will exacerbate that power dynamic and polarization all at the same time, so stop wanting it. host: another myth yo

the author's casey burgat and we always appreciate your time on c-span. guest: thank you. host: that will do it for us on "washington journal." we will be back tomorrow at 7:00 eastern, 4:00 a.m. pacific. we take you to a discussion on the challenges facing the united states hosted by the brookings institute, the american enterprise institute, and tulane university. that is said to get underway momentarily in washington. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] cecilia: i am president of the brookings institute. thank you for joining me. thank you to our cohost, the american enterprise institute. i would also like to thank brookings scholars carol graham and doug harris, who spearheaded the entire effort. this was an effort that many doubted would come to fruition given our country's deep divisions. yet here we are. the state of the nation report released today as a result of scholars from across the political spectrum com