Many voters are willing to accept misinformation from political leaders – even when they know it’s factually inaccurate. According to our research, voters often recognize when their parties’ claims are not based on objective evidence. Yet they still respond positively, if they believe these inaccurate statements evoke a deeper, more important “truth.”
Moreover, the founding fathers warned us of this happening, in advance. They knew that it would, they told us that it was all but inevitable, we have had multiple centuries of time in which to shore up democracy… like to implement ranked-choice voting, while instead… we chose not to.
I do not hold out hope for democracy to last much longer, not against such repeated assaults as this. The game of Russian Roulette never ends in happiness, but it does always end.