Just had a fascinating conversation with my smartest friend who is also anti-Trump. He says he gets his news from CNN, MSNBC and the NY Times. So I tested him to see the quality of his general knowledge on the hydroxychloroquine story.
He had never heard that zinc has to be combined with hydroxychloroquine to be effective (or so the hypothesis goes). So he did not know the studies showing no effect without the zinc were not telling you much.
He was not aware that something like a quarter of doctors would prescribe hydroxychloroquine and zinc based on the situation and the risk assessment. He believed there was zero medical opinion agreeing with Trump.
He had never heard of "off-label" prescribing of meds, and that it is fairly normal. He believed any doctor doing such a thing was violating healthcare norms with "unproven drugs."
He was not aware the frontline healthcare workers (some not all) have been taking hydroxychloroquine (and probably zinc) for months.
He was not aware that multiple other countries are routinely prescribing hydroxychloroquine (and zinc I assume) and they have actual doctors there too.
He was not aware that the ONE time Trump's handling of the coronavirus departed from the opinion of experts (Fauci in particular), Trump was right: Closing travel from China. He believed Trump was ignoring experts.
I tried to explain to my friend that the news media pre-2016 sometimes said true things, but we no longer live in those times. I recommended he broaden his news sources so at least he is EXPOSED to the entire news. He resisted because, you know, FOX News blah, blah. Lost cause.
What fascinates me the most about this situation is that my friend is an Ivy League graduate and easily in the top-five-percent of well-informed people in society, and he pays attention to the news. He was shocked when I told him how much "news" (context) is kept from him.
If you think this is a criticism of the left, you're only partly right. I'm criticizing anyone who doesn't sample the news from both left and right. But I do observe that conservatives are far more likely to know the story on both sides because "mainstream" news is ubiquitous.
Also, my friend had never seen the Russian troll farm memes (which looked like a sixth grade project) so he actually believed those memes changed the election. No one who has seen them believes that.
He also believes that if 17 intelligence agencies say something is true, it's because all 17 independently looked into it. I feel sorry for anyone who thinks that. In the real world, a few people in one agency have an opinion and the rest say it sounds good to them.
He also believed it is a fact that Russia hacked the DNC. It might be a fact. It might not. But we certainly don't KNOW it to be true.
