Language rant up ahead! All language lemmings to their safe spaces.
Last Fall I made an appointment to speak with an auto salesperson. I arrived at the dealership on time, but she didn't. After waiting five minutes, I consulted the general manager. His response was that if she didn't arrive soon, he would "reach out to her." About the same time I received an e-mail message from the Internet Chess Club hawking some product or other. "We are reaching out to inform you . . . ."
Examples are easily multiplied. What explains the prevalence of this ridiculously inflated use of an otherwise unobjectionable expression?
If your spouse dies, I may reach out to you to offer my condolence and help. But if I notice a rattlesnake near your back door, I won't 'reach out' to you about it, but simply inform you of the fact.
And if I inform you of some paltry fact, I haven't 'educated' you about it, but merely provided you with a scrap of information.
An educated person is not the one whose head is stuffed with information, but the one whose experientially-honed judgment is capable of making sense of information. To become well-informed is not difficult; to become well-educated is a task of self-development for a lifetime.
Can we blame the decline of language and good sense on liberals? I'll leave you with that (rhetorical) question.