The problem with all the paranoia and the conspiracy theory is, you can't talk people out of it. The psychological research is super clear on this, that if you try to fact-check people when they have incorrect facts, you only entrench their belief, that you can't talk people out of an emotional state.
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Well, 77 percent of Republicans or Trump backers say the election was stolen by fraud, according to a Monmouth poll... A lot of those same people don't believe that masks can save your life.
So, there's a section of a country that's become detached from reality and, under Trump paranoia, has become a style, a resurgent style.
I wrote a column about this a week ago. And I tried to theorize that this derives out of a sense of menace and threat, that people feel existentially unsafe, and so they grasp for conspiracy theories, because it makes them feel powerful, that they see the truth. It makes them feel agency. They can expose the evil cabals.
And I think there's some truth to that, that people — a lot of people just feel very scared economically, socially, racially. And out of that fear comes paranoia.