Billionaires buy corporate media to inject views in the populace that benefit the billionaires. If they're good at playing the slow game and lobbying congress, they can influence the thinking of a generation of people through education and media.
Millenials don't think like boomers who don't think like the Greatest Generation who don't think like their parents generation before then.
Your history classes don't clearly convey the way the general public thought in previous generations. Its very interesting to learn about previous generations thoughts and opinions on very similar issues that we see today.
People had the same intelligence back then as they today, they just didn't have the library of scientific knowledge and surprisingly a lot of knowledge on their viewpoints is largely forgotten by the public.
Bring on the down votes haters. People have the right to know.