How Can 53% of Americans Be So Wrong?

It seems a lot of the American people still don't get it.

The most recent Gallup survey of U.S. adults revealed that 53% of them wrongly believe China possesses the world's largest economy.

Dishearteningly, this number has kept going up over the past several years.

Even worse, this majority is really, really wrong.

According to the most recent numbers from the World Bank America's economy remains far and away the globe's biggest - almost 2.5 times bigger than China's ($15 trillion to $6 trillion).

How can so many be so misinformed?

It might be presumptuous inferring too much here. But this serious disconnect from reality mandates at least a few observations.

As the dominant political, cultural, military, and economic player on the planet, America constitutes an empire on a scale far greater than anything humankind has ever seen.

Yes, we face big problems as a people. And, they are real problems. However, they pale in the face of our power.

Ask any American who has spent time overseas and they will tell you the reach of our country is truly remarkable.

Having a majority of the population failing to recognize this truth puts our Republic at risk. It threatens the ability of the Nation to define and maintain our core principles both home and abroad.

Clearly a lot of us need to turn down the noise and ramp up our understanding of what is truly going on in the world.

History doesn't care whether we like being an empire or not.