Back in the day someone who expressed skepticism of what they were told would be called a “doubting Thomas”, after the apostle in the Bible who refused to believe Jesus had come back from the dead until he’d seen it himself and personally put his finger in the wounds from his crucifixion. In the gospel, Thomas is framed as inferior to those who did not express skepticism, with Jesus himself showing up and telling him that those who believed without having seen are blessed.

This is one of many instances in which a foundational scripture of our civilization encourages us to be weak-minded and submissive, which helps explain why so many of us are. We should all have exactly the same attitude as Thomas toward extraordinary claims of potentially immense consequence. I’ll believe in the hidden alien bodies when you show them to the public and let an independent panel of scientists verify their authenticity. I’ll believe in the Russian election meddling when you show me rock solid proof that can be independently verified by experts. I’ll believe this allegation of genocide or that claim of war crimes once I’ve been presented with the mountain of proof that rises to the level required in a post-Iraq invasion world.

Yup and yup.

When you have so many people who grow up being told that it's just a-okay to believe completely irrational shit without question, and to see those who do question as inferiors and/or heretics, you're just asking to have this learned brain dysfunction be abused by opportunistic assholes.

Cue every single propaganda campaign in recent memory, Vietnam, Iraq, C19, Ukraine, UFOs, Jan 6th... all based in "if you believe us without asking questions you're one of the GoodGuys™️; everybody else is part of the BadGuys™️ and should be either dismissed or bashed around the head until they join"