It’s widely known. Attained education correlates with preference for left-wing policies, and in the US case, with opposition to Trump.

a sample from Newsweek’s “Trump approval tracker”

Many of the people responding to the poll may not have ever encountered the claims they were asked about.

However, they do offer a “not sure” option, which can be taken if a person knows they’re not informed.

Gullibility appears to cut across party lines, with respondents identifying as Democrats just as likely as Republicans to believe at least one of the 10 false claims.

Republicans were, though, more likely to believe Russian disinformation claims than their Democratic counterparts, with 57.6% falling for at least one Russian disinformation claim, compared with just 17.9% of Democrats and 29.5% of people who didn’t identify with one particular party.

I looked at the 10 false claims used for the test. Most of them were ridiculously easy to dismiss as false. The only one I had difficulty with was identifying whether social security cuts were part of “Project 2025” agenda, due to the agenda being very extensive (the source says 922 pages) and me not living in a country that it’s about. Thus I’d have answered “not sure”. I’d have also answered “not sure” about the birth place of some terrorist.

If people stumble on these, people are really poorly informed or unable / unwilling to inform themselves.

Some guesses.

• the US media environment is very entertainment-focused?

• the US education system leaves things to be desired?

• the US population spends a high amount of time in social media echo chambers?

• do Republicans spend more of online time in bot-infested places?

• do they have lower bot recognition and fact checking skills?

• are they drinking the kool-aid because their great leader drank it, so it seems legit?

In general, propaganda works. That’s why people pay for it. When you have a delicate equilibrium and you can push it past the tipping point with little effort, that’s the most economical way of disabling an opponent. :( Using force would require a spending a trillion, but using disinformation, you can get outcomes with a tiny amount.

Russia is spending significant amounts on promulgating misinformation in the U.S. Last year, for example, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted two people for funneling nearly $10 million through a Tennessee-based content creation company to publish misinformation about Ukraine.

Anyone’s hand, presented by the man whose first column in the “customs tariff table” was a ridiculous lie made up of cooked numbers (trade deficit instead of tariff rate).

There’s no reason to put a grain of trust in him.

Short answer: if they got it bad, they’re dead or in a nursing home. That’s why they aren’t walking in a mall. They ran out of health.

Long answer: in recent times, there seems to be lower threshold of diagnosis.

But if he truly thinks he can pinpoint exposures that increase autism - things like the exposure to tetraethyl lead which probably increased criminality and decreased mental health - good luck for combing scientific studies. There may be some. But if he’s gonna rewind the age old “vaccines cause” record and replay it, nah, I won’t be listening.

Listing living people as dead in an official database is 99% likely a crime.

Summary:

• a journalist was invited
• half an hour before the first takeoff, the takeoff times of planes, drones and cruise missiles were shared
• it was mentioned that an individual terrorist is on sight and his location known

Sadly, none of them will be jailed, like a lay person would be for disclosing military secrets.

However, I would advocate for punishing them with having a mandatory nanny appointed to oversee them for 4 years.

If they win, the FEC won’t take directions from Trump.

This does not exclude the chance that Trump will provoke a more pointed confrontation. Or that Trump won’t eventually have to be removed by force. It’s just a basic thing to do - a road of 1000 steps starts with step 1.

Do these Republicans in Montana have some bet with Taliban, about who will lower life expectancy quicker?

As the article also duly notes, they fear that various cancers might be defeated with mRNA immunotherapy. :)

For me, the most important lesson in the mole’s own article was: access to social media can turn tides and fortunes around.

What’s more, AP3’s best recruiting tool was essentially gone: Facebook had cracked down on paramilitary organizing. “Facebook has been our greatest weapon. It’s gotten us where we are today,” Seddon told his troops.

Social media environments help build organizations like that. And when a social media company invests non-trivial effort to cut them off (generally not out of good will, but due to legislation), they do experience a withering effect.

…but with lots of work, they can overcome it. Which is why their propaganda should be removed and countered anywhere it can be.

Seddon sought ways to capitalize on the improving political climate. In Alabama, members fanned out to shops around the state, where they dropped off stacks of business cards encouraging patriots to “do your part.” “The APIII Alabama Recruitment line has rang non stop today,” a leader reported back afterward. “I honestly wasn’t expecting it to get this big.”

In Washington state, AP3 members in the military reserves touted the militia to fellow reservists during their units’ regular monthly drills. One chapter looked into purchasing billboard ads. In internal chats, many members agreed the “best place to recruit” is Veterans Affairs facilities.

…

By the fall, they had arrived at a more efficient method. Facebook’s public posture hadn’t wavered. AP3 was still on its list of banned “dangerous organizations.” Again and again in press releases, the company said its efforts to combat militias were stronger than ever.

Inside AP3, though, leaders were seeing something different: The social media giant was gradually loosening its controls.

That sounds bad indeed.

Comparison: over here in Estonia, out of the general population, 71% trust the courts (an increase from 55% as measured back in 2013). Out of lawyers, 88% trust the courts here. A bit north of here, in Finland, 83% of the population “think that the courts are independent or very independent” (I failed to find a direct question about trust).

According to Wikipedia, wild and fully potent polio is still circulating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In addition, many developing countries are using live vaccines (weakened strains of polio) which can sometimes regain their ability to spread, even if they don’t do much damage.

Polio not gone, it’s just waiting for fools to think so - and to prematurely drop their defenses.