Group chats say that: yes, they do.

Also socializing becomes impossible. I once went to a birthday party only to have it ruined by a friend of the host. Said friend only wanted to talk partisan politics non-stop.

Yes. Crazy political people are crazy political people and think the issue they care about is the most important thing ever.

The issue they've been told is important, right? For example it was vital in the minds of some in USA to put import taxes (tariffs) >100% on all Chinese goods.

They would have seemed to care about that, until Trump got told that wasn't working (or, as likely, the market had been swung far enough) and did a 180 removing tariffs on what the public were told were the most vital things to tariff...

All those people didn't change their mind at the exact moment it was needed to swing the stock market back and for you mate the oligarchs money - just Musk et al. have built a brainwash machine at a national level.

It's an important distinction - when interviewed it seems barely any of those being manipulated can form a coherent thought about "the issue they care about".

But remember that this is supported by traditional media (Fox news). It's not just social media.

Correct. The term for these type of unreliable sources in support of an ideology is propaganda.

That's a good definition of propaganda. The way it's usually taught in schools is that propaganda is all lies, but propaganda is any communication intended to promote a cause or agenda and opportunistically uses both truth and lies, choosing whichever align with the agenda. Unreliable captured this neatly.

We were taught in school that what they choose to cover is as important as what they don’t choose to cover. Of course I am realizing I had better critical media analysis sort of education than most.