And it’s very easy to take someone who’s slightly unhappy and lead them down the slippery slope into beleived helplessness and constant raging anger. And once you’ve trained them to that mental state, you own them. They will do your bidding unquestioningly.
The Reactionary Wacko Traitor propaganda machine has a lot to answer for. Suborning ~100 million people into raging incoherence is a large crime. Perhaps one on the scale of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
I watch a lot of stuff on YouTube that debunks Flat Earthers and other such conspiracy-based fantasists. There seems to be a very similar mindset in the hardcore Trumpists/MAGAs/Q people. Ignore all factual reality and accept what you want to hear.
I’m hoping like heck that last panel is supposed to be intensely ironic. Because of all the making-up-stuff, ignoring-reality mindsets out there, religion is at the top of my list for persistent damage to human minds.
I remember one poster from the erstwhile IMDb boards who proclaimed to buy into virtually every single conspiracy that came down the pike. Even if they appeared to be in conflict with each other.
Sunk cost fallacy? “I can’t have been wrong for those eight years since he rode the escalator down so it’s those big meanies that are trying to thwart a great man how are.”
When he’s President again, he can put the entire U.S. Government to work, deleting all still and video images of him looking fat, worldwide. Because that’s what it’s gonna take…
Many years ago, I attended a talk where a fellow was comparing things like this to “The Zombie Apocalypse”. He was discussing racism, but it applies to a lot of beliefs.
The idea is, there’s always that one guy who hides a zombie bite, and then, at the worst possible time, he turns into a zombie and catches you by surprise.
You’re just hanging out, discussing stuff in general, and then, without warning, someone you thought was sensible comes out with some kind of mind-numbing nonsense, and you’re caught flat-footed, “Oh My God, he’s one of them!!!”