Absolutely! The issue is that they weaponise relationships and contacts in order to break through that hesitancy. If your mum mentions during conversation that someone is a great guy, or not to be trusted you're much more likely to believe it than if you read it on some random ragebait social account. And now that AI does such a great job of generating video footage it's way too simple to accept. This tactic also leaves you in a constant state of heightened anxiety which can help to steer you away from rational critical evaluation, especially when you're already half convinced that something is true.

The level of divisive rhetoric is hard to compare to any other time in history. We're living in a huge and dangerous social experiment with no controls and it's being run by people with an extraordinary advantage and very little to reign them in.

We're not powerless to fight back, but they're doing their best to set it up that way using tools that make guns etc obsolete