Hunter Biden, the president’s problematic son, has finally been indicted for his years of tax evasion. Only in an egregiously unequal society like ours do the children of the rich and powerful get away with corruption for as long as Hunter Biden has.
The opposite of engaging is disengaging and that gives full reign for the conspiracy to flourish. The issue isn’t to convince it’s to inoculate against the right’s disinformation before the hyperexaggerations happen on a broader scale during the election campaign. The idea that this helps the right or is a bad thing is insanely disconnected from the actual issues that will determine the election, thus handing more ground to the GOP both in issues they can own and people who they can convince.
And I’m saying I don’t think you can innoculate. Facts are expensive. Lies are cheap. Look at how successful the right wing grift mill is. The facts on various matters aren’t hard to find, but it’s so lucrative that people keep it growing in spite of reality and the facts. People don’t want to leave, because reality isn’t exciting; it has few binaries, whereas they have clear villains, a simplified(-ish) paradigm, and a promise of being special and “being in the know” about life’s secrets.
And I know this is the case, because I am an ex-Christian. There is no shortage of people willing to justify their beliefs based on little to no objective evidence. The backfire effect is a real phenomenon, and people who aren’t open to being wrong are the most likely to be affected by it.