American society is dominated by wealthy mountebanks and literally demented politicians

I think one of the bigger discouragements to reading that doesn’t get mentioned in the article is the absolute torrent of bullshit still being slopped into print. Malcolm Gladwell and Yuval Noah Harari are what pass for public intellectuals. Popular fiction feels more simplistic and less thoughtfully written. Why commit to spending hours reading a book when it’ll turn out that the author didn’t do their research or the plot ends up being nonsensical?