Good piece at it's base,, but I "love" these things where the underlying message is, "I'm much smarter than this/you/them"
Meh.

That is the intention of those creating and disseminating the lies. It is up to us to keep fighting against the effort.

If someone lacks the ability for critical thought they will be easily duped. Play to their unfounded fears and you have them. Most people want to believe in an after life, and that is understandable. The unknown is scary. As for the inability to discern commentary from news is not that difficult. The stupid will have a real problem with this, and will generally believe whatever they are told to shift the blame for their lot in life from themselves to others like the government and immigrants. The intellectually lazy just mneed to pay attention. The real media gets more blame than they deserve. The reason we found out about Iran Contra, the Iraq war, and all of the crap that has gone on with Trump is because of the media. this information has not come from some over weight virgin sitting in his mother's basement with a computer putting this stuff out on the internet. The information is there and if you look you will see what jibes or doesn't jibe with what you see if you are paying attention.

"Our churches, synagogues, and mosques lie to us. "...So we make up preposterous stories about magic people in the sky and then immediately say that we cannot question those stories, that “faith” in them is more important than knowledge of what is real. Why? Because they will not stand up to scrutiny...."

The belief in the big lie is entirely in keeping with the dynamics described by Eric Hoffer in The True Believer.

What is not so clear is how the main stream media distort reality in their presentation of the news, mostly by omission and by ridiculously stories that create needless anxiety and prevent meaningful engagement of the public with their government. The character of our media suggests the public is being ruthlessly controlled in what they are allowed to see or think.

The Daily Beast is clearly NOT without bias!

If the author’s thesis is true, we’ve all been gaslighted.