If you don't believe me, go ahead and ask some of your friends about Universal Injunctions and the Maryland Court lawsuit. See how much they actually know and how much you have to explain to them.
I don't think it's an issue of intelligence or age-specific, I think it's a toss-up of having too much faith in pre-established "authorities" of information (news media, government, radio) who can then only be informed via regimented means (specific news slots at a specific time of day, or a select few articles printed out in a news paper). If this individual did not watch the news, they're not going to have any idea what's going on, especially if they rely on streaming for content which circumvents the possibility of even accidently being informed to zero. In my experience old people who don't watch tv at all genuinely don't know half of what's going on, which may explain their voting patterns since they're likely just moving off of inertia.
Internet users meanwhile different but not too dissimilar. They can completely avoid any information if they so choose if they wish, and make an active decision to not absorb or consume content they don't desire to. This is mostly where the young fall I think, and I do get it in some respect. If you weren't aware of the Israel v Iran thing that happened over the past week, week and a half, then how would knowing about it have altered you week? Does you knowing about the injunctions negatively or positively affect the eventual outcome of the Trump case? Even in places like TikTok and YouTube, if the algorithm determines you don't consume news content or they make more off of you feeding you content that doesn't inform at all, you've now tailor-made an environment in which you don't have to become aware of anything lest you so choose.
You could likely ask any random in the street and receive the same look of perplexity trying to inform them on something they simply weren't aware of.
Hypothetical conversation of informing the average person about the Maryland Injunctions:
"Have you heard about Maryland's universal injunctions?"
"No, what's what?"
"Maryland's judiciary can automatically prevent proceedings on the cases of illegals being deported until they get a look at it first."
"Oh, I didn't know they could do that. Are they allowed to?"
"In theory, yes, because it's a power the court - any court has, really. But it's a blatant enough misuse of authority in this case because they're filed out automatically, and can even cross state lines. This can hold up deportation proceedings weeks, even months, wasting the state both time and money. The Trump admin is suing them for it."
"Well, alright then..."
Equivalent to:
"Did you know feudalism in Europe only officially died in 2008?"
I shared the anecdote in the British news thread, but everyone I know off the internet had no clue about Israel and Iran, likely because they don't watch the news or use the internet for reading news either. The only people who seem to learn stuff are people who drive cars for long stretches, have the radio on, and just get glimpses of goings on when the DJ offhandedly mentions something. Most people genuinely aren't aware of things, and I don't even blame them for it nor do I think less of them for not bothering to, especially if it's not going to affect them personally. The "online safety act" which Null blocked UK IPs over has no popular pushback because most people have no idea it even exists, nor are people aware that they can arrested for "incitement" and the like (which pretty much describes every person who was ever arrested for it). The UK lucks out only because the perpetual inertia of "I hate immigrants" won out over "I love bennies" in the North and so there's a swing right-ward in polling.
I imagine in America most Americans thought: "It's 2020, things generally don't feel good, so I'm going to vote for the other party to fix it." -> "It's 2024, things generally don't feel good, so I'm going to vote for the other party to fix it."
As an aside: I'm genuinely curious how many Americans haven't heard of January 6. I remember seeing that stat somewhere regarding the 2024 election that was something like "6% of people had no idea who Kamala Harris
or Donald Trump were" and I suspect the true number might be double or even triple that.
To sum: News consumption and information can be generally analogous to Kiwifarms: you ask me to describe the general makeup of the the Deathfats sub-forum, I'd have no clue; however, if you ask me to do the same for Grift Wars, I can be a bit more helpful, because Grift Wars has some cows I follow.
I still have no clue who the fuck Nick Rieketa is and despite the number of times him and his associated have been featured (I assume that's what the "balldoverse" is) I haven't bothered to look into it. 
