I’ve said for the longest time that my 7th grade self could accomplish all of the day to day admin tasks I’m assigned at work and still stand by that statement. You can’t effectively read without knowing how to interpret what the author/speaker expressed
Someone has a story below about the South Korean President and their coworker just taking the President's statement of North Korea is invading at total face value even though the article was about how he was trying to create the crisis. Just a bonkers level of finding a single sentence in an article that you vibe with and then making the conversation about that (or rather about how you're on that side).
I think people understand allegiances and power much better than they can express it, and in fact struggle to express why they agree with "powerful person on their side" when pressed for a reason. Like, I could say to the same coworker "Trump said that communism rules", and they would immediately be able to engage their critical thinking abilities and disbelieve that or ask for a source.