People need to understand how conspiracies become mainstreamed. All it takes is someone with a platform and trusted audience to tell them it's true.

That's all it takes for good people to believe it. Those who spread that conspiracy are betraying the people who trust them.

An example: my parents asked me if there was any truth to the claims that the election was stolen via massive voter fraud. I told them there wasn't.

As they trust me, they no longer believed it. But most Trump supporters didn't have anyone they trust telling them the truth.

Part of that is because the press had no credibility with those people (& that lack of credibility was earned). The other part of it is that many of the people who did instead promoted, or at least ignored, those lies.

Now once you buy into a conspiracy like that, the consequences are significant. And while most regular people were angry but just moved on with their lives, there are always going to be unstable people in such a large group that will want to act on those beliefs.

It also didn't help that we had a year where people already had their mental health challenged by a global pandemic, lockdowns, and constant (indefensible) rioting. Then you add in conspiracies like this and someone like Trump constantly pouring gasoline, you end up w Wednesday.