Some people are prone to conspiracies and seek them out. That actually makes more my point than yours. I am not talking about a simple propensity to believe bullshit which I agree with you is as common as green grass. I am talking about people being convinced that the world works a certain way, and society reinforces the message. It becomes a core belief. Core beliefs become part of a persons identity and are not given up easily. Consider this 'America follows the path of justice.'
Joe and Suzie Creamcheese may be the sons and daughters of lawyers from the other side of town. They have never seen poverty up close. They think the world is totally fair. Poor people are only lazy. 'America follows the path of justice.' To them that statement is true and if they are presented with evidence that what they believe is not true, they will deny it with a passion they do not know they have. They will be like Nietzsche watching the horse be beat retreating into the safety of madness rather than see the truth. Fanciful justifications and elaborate stories will be created to smooth over contradictions to which they might be exposed.
They may have a Damascus moment, it is possible. But that is unlikely.
US spy base `taps UK phones for MI5'
THE Berlin Wall came down, the Cold War ended, and the military might of the West was reduced - but not Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, the biggest US overseas spy base. Now MI5 and MI6, the security services, are believed to be evading British regulations on telephone-tapping by asking the Americans at the base to do it for them.
It is a reciprocal arrangement, and I know that as FACT. And my point is that 99% percent of people will forget about the reality of this news article and the certainty of any reciprocal arrangement as soon as they scroll away. This being an example of one truth that Americans can't handle.
When a reader encounters a piece of evidence as concrete as this 1996 Independent article, they have a glimpse of the truth. However, a truth that is inherently "un-liveable" for most people. To acknowledge deep intrusion as a permanent, foundational fact of daily life requires them to fundamentally change how they engage with the state, technology, and their own feelings of safety. And the fact is, they are not fucking going to do that.
Access to the truth is not the bottleneck, the bottleneck is the capacity to endure truth.