I saved this Ward Sutton cartoon the other day at a time when the support of Russia's ordinary people for Vladimir Putin's war on Urkaine was receiving extensive coverage.
And Iowa's Legislature was launching a full-frontal assault on pubic education (and educators) in our state. And Republicans in Congress were inventing reasons to oppose the Supreme Court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson. And various lies regarding COVID-19 vaccines were (and are) widely believed. And racism, anti-Semitism and homophobia were (and are) regaining ground in some areas.
Why are so many people ready and willing, even eager, to believe so many lies?
Intellectual laziness in part, I suppose. I've heard the trend described as an attempted coup against an inevitable future of increasing diversity and the erosion of old power bases --- race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and the like. Fear of the "other," of course.
I'm still thinking about this and when I've isolated the answers I'll let you know.
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