The boomers grew up in a time where trust in the media was simply not questioned. That blind trust continues today with the cable news networks even when they are pushing the most obvious lies. It is even worse when they get their news from Apple News. They are mainlining propaganda directly into their eyeballs 24/7 that the believe to be 100% true.
My father who is a lifetime conservative voter told me a few weeks ago that he believes Trump won’t leave office after his term is over and that he will use the military to keep himself in office. I used the inverse “that sounds like a pretty wild conspiracy theory, where did you hear that?” trick on my father and he freaked out and said CNN.
My father in law is not technical at all. His work gave him an iPhone and now the only notifications he gets are phone calls, texts, and Apple News updates. He wakes up in the middle of the night any time his phone alerts him to new news articles, reads them, gets pissed off about Trump, then can’t sleep for the rest of the night.
My father in law is how I know how effective the propaganda machine can be. He is a rural blue collar guy, owns a lot of guns which he says he will die defending if there is a gun grab, doesn’t like trannies, hates Trudeau etc. But somehow also hates Alberta, Danielle Smith, the USA, Trump, Charlie Kirk, basically anyone who is trying to defend his lifestyle that the media demonizes. I’ve watched it happen in real time over the past 15 years. 2016 was wild.