I feel so powerless against this terrifying trend. All I can do is try to insulate myself from misinformation and inflammatory content - which is hard enough - but I have close relatives who positively eat it up without even thinking twice about taking a critical eye. I've tried engaging them on it and encouraging healthy skepticism, and it's been entirely fruitless. The average person seems to have zero capacity to reflect on and be aware of their own biases and emotions and how those affect their judgement and are affected by their environment.

I'm just so frustrated and exhausted. It's hard not to lose all hope for humanity in times like these.