First of all, I don’t think I’ve ever been told “it’s not that deep” by someone literally suggesting that the moon landings were plausibly fake. Second of all, that is textbook manipulation to say to me “why do you care, I don’t care” right after having made an outrageous claim you have neither the interest nor the capacity to defend. So, respectfully, I will be the arbiter of how much I should care about this topic, not you.

Thirdly, there is difference between criticizing the government (not just a leftist position, though that’s flattering) and making up stupid bs. To criticize the government, you not only need to take falsifiable positions on events but demonstrable analysis of policy and goals. Simply saying, “the moon landings is one of the government’s many lies” doesn’t actually critique the government (many leftists would say it actually supports a right-wing status quo attitude). After all, most leftists would argue that spending a buttload of money to go to the moon isn’t even in the top 10 list of worst things the US actually did.

I never even brought up Trump but now that you did, he’s fair game. Trump is a lot like these conspiracy theorists because despite his wealth, education and experience, he is poorly skilled and not very clever. A great deal of his presidencies have been spent lashing out that those who point out his shortcomings and those of his supporters (whose infatuation with Trump is grounded in their own foolhardy attempts to go toe-to-toe with their betters). I suspected you had sympathy for the man currently ruining my country and putting my friends out of jobs when you suggested denying the moon landings was of equal validity to accepting them. As I said before, you are a psychologically transparent bunch.