fear of having lived your life entirely wrong and being too old to accept responsibility in changing it

Living in their own reality and being drip fed propaganda constantly

FoxNews

Acknowledging the truth means accepting that we're fucked, that even if we weren't individually responsible (maybe) we are still going to have to deal with the ramifications... And that's scary. It's far more comforting for there to be a secret cabal controlling everything and that really life is gonna be ok and you don't have to change anything at all.

Propoganda baybeeee

Decades of it

I've spent years working at a fossil-fuel-adjacent company, and I've noticed that even some intelligent people (consciously or unconsciously) avoid any information that that might make them think they may not being living a perfectly moral life, or information where the obvious solution goes against their "values" (pro-business, free market). They also grasp for any information that affirms their values and lifestyle, no matter how easily discredited the source.

It's kinda worrying that it always seems to result in Nazi-like conspiracy theories like "the Agenda," "Elites," "groomers," "cultural marxism," etc.

It’s not being dumb, it’s being that stubborn.

If they hadn’t “picked a side” already, they would be very easy to convince.

Republicans