You vastly overestimate how much the average person pays attention to anything political, and when they do hear something they just assume they’re all like that.
Not to mention the whataboutism.
My dad…
Djt got convicted… But Bidens economy… And Ukraine. Not to mention that judge in the trial …
Like faux news talking points regurgitated.
The vast majority of people do not know enough about the world to be able to work out what they’re receiving from the news is or isn’t bullshit, and wouldn’t have the mental tools to be able to work it out if they did have access to it. Their choice is between accepting what the news and social media are telling them, or else living in an incoherent jumble where all points of view are equally invalid and suspect and they are left with no idea at all of what’s going on.
They actually get really uncomfortable in the landscape of “let’s work out what is going on by subjecting these claims to criticism.” It’s disorienting for them, like upending of a bedrock unanimous-consensus world view that has been projected very sternly at them out of the TV. Like the introduction of something subversive and obviously wrong that they are going to let into their brain, and then they’ll become wrong, too.
I actually can think of only one time when I was able to talk someone into admitting that the overall picture he was telling me probably wasn’t true even though the internet had told him, and it took over an hour, and then he instantly followed it up by saying – I am only slightly exaggerating – that he was going to keep believing it anyway because holding onto it made him feel better.
Honestly, I’m somewhat surprised that American elections are still as connected to reality as they currently are. Their outcomes are like 25% connected to the reality of the candidates, where I would have expected more like 5.
