A myopic view, but the government has generally not been heading in the direction of an educated populace over the last few decades. It doesn't surprise me that anything that's too intellectually capable is a threat.
One of the most important things I've ever read as someone that wants to be able to break out of my comfort zone was from Uiua's website. Foreign != confusing
I'm unsure if "no descenders" provides increased clarity. For example, lowercase q is easy to recognize because your eyes are already drawn to it being one of few characters that descend. In the case of this font, you have a small uppercase Q as the lowercase q. This feels like it accomplishes the opposite of this stated benefit.