You give too much credit to MAGA opponents. When discussing issues like immigration, health care, or climate change, the symptoms you describe apply to all political controversies.

You are correct; the cause is a lack of education. In particular, the deficiency in mathematics. It is the inability to conduct basic logical reasoning. It is in the incapacity to see logical correlations. Mike Adler, an Australian mathematician, nailed it down perfectly in this short essay: https://atom.curtin.edu.au/Alder_Decline.pdf.