There’s a tendency in this heated political climate to simply reject people who are saying false things and to write off conspiracy theorists writ large.
But as the US approaches the third straight election in which misinformation — and the fight against it — is expected to play a role, it’s important to understand what’s driving people who don’t believe in US elections.
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I talked to O’Sullivan about the documentary, in which he has some frank and disarming talks with people about what has shaken their belief in the US. But he paints an alarming picture about the rise of fringe movements in the country.
Our conversation, conducted by phone and edited for length, is below:
WOLF: What were you trying to accomplish with this project?
O’SULLIVAN: So much of mainstream American politics now is being infected and affected by what is happening on what was once considered the real fringes — fringe platforms, fringe personalities.
And I think really what we want to do in this show is illustrate how these personalities may be pushing falsehoods, but they’re no longer fringe. This is all happening right now. And it is having a big effect on our democracy.
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So this has been the inspiration for my reaching across the aisle approach.
You can’t convince them by calling them idiots. You need to go on their social media and instead of fighting their wrong posts, just hint and gently point them in the class conscience posts.
They are getting there, the issue now is although they do believe power hungry people want to control things. They just think it’s done via committee instead of wealth.
It takes more effort for me to convince a group of people with talking then just buying things out.