[api]

Very good point. There are a ton of legitimate criticisms of Facebook, but you can’t blame FB for American anti-intellectualism, rampant gullibility, and the failings of the two party system.

Americans have for decades been gullible fools who never read below headlines and fall for tabloid trash. This “post-reality” thing that is culminating with stuff like Qanon has also been cooking for decades, nurtured by trash TV, dumbed down religion, and new age word salad.

In the past only mass media had the privilege of being able to lead this mass of morons. Now that has been democratized, allowing DIY YouTube and Facebook personalities to take advantage of America’s rampant foolishness.

The solution has to start with an broad spectrum social movement to raise the quality of discourse in the culture, a kind of big tent anti-bullshit movement. We need to replace hard line partisan intolerance with intolerance for intellectual junk food. Liberals, conservatives, and anyone else should start promoting all content of any perspective so long as it is well written, well reasoned, and credible, and rejecting BS from their own side as well as others.