A lot of Millenials and older are likely anesthetized to the hysteria and bloodthirsty nature of war, the lies pushed to drive the state into war or through proxy, and the demonization of the other by virtue of witnessing the US turn viscerally angry and irrationally exuberant for violence from 9/11 and the leadup into the Iraq War.

That war demonstrated the complicity and surrogacy of the media as mouthpiece for the state and power, and served only to amplify and not question the calls for war.

Whether we are working backwards from our conclusions about our politics is ambiguous, but what is certain is that we do try to use primary sources for our understanding of the world as to avoid gaslighting ourselves from what state propaganda tells us.