To your point of “We the People”: they have been anesthetized. They are happily ensconced in their little bubbles, and the media has seduced them into believing that whatever the media doesn’t agree with is a “conspiracy theory”. Anyone who raises such ideas is a tin foil hat adherent who is clearly uninformed/stupid/crazy -- if they would only “educate themselves” more via WaPo, NYT, MSNBC, they wouldn’t be so captured by MAGA.

One of the main things I’m struggling with at the moment is how the vast majority of people around me don’t seem to notice how off-the-rails things have become -- even high IQ people (two MDs and a biochemistry PhD, for example). No level of absurdity appears odd to them (eg. gender theory, invisible indigenous graves, rampant crime with no arrests/prosecution, open borders...the list is endless). Most of them say things like, “The NY Times isn’t biased -- they have opinions from conservatives, like David Brooks, and their news writing is very objective.” I couldn’t even get my DIL to say that her baby IS a boy (rather than “assigned male at birth”...and I live in a “purple state”...