You made so many good points here.

The frustration among liberals is that facts and reason do not matter. The Republicans will, and do, say anything at all to further their cause. And they do it with impunity.

The world is a contradictory, confusing, and problematic place, and yet those who wish it to be otherwise suffer the most.

Not to be overlooked in all of this (something you wrote about) is this business of cult thinking. This is the key. Trump, a vile, disgusting, criminal character, is the expert at creating effluent talking points that only make sense to the senseless. In his sociopathy he has done what all successful cult leaders do: He has created a secret language, told a mixture of truths and lies so that they now are undifferentiated, created an atmosphere of tremendous fear, capitalized on low self esteem both personally and socially, fomented distrust in "the other," and turned the unsociable into the acceptable. He has lied so often and with such vigor that he has won the contest by taking the energy out of lying.

Meanwhile, the media remains what it has been for decades — the mouthpiece of the world's most conservative and powerful corporate structures. Calling this cabal the "liberal media" is the joke of the century. Another lie accepted without thought or investigation.