The people with the most accurate view of reality lie somewhere in the middle and do the critical thinking for themselves. The reality is that conspiracies do and always have existed, and the mainstream today is very different than the mainstream 100 years ago, which was different 100 years prior, etc. (because those mainstreams were proven wrong on many levels, as our current one will be).
Ask yourself honestly: would you have been on the side of the Catholic Church in the Galileo inquisition, had you lived in that time with your personality?
On the other side, would you have been a patron of the charlatan John Taylor had you lived in his time? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_(oculist)
Back in the 60s after John F Kennedy was murdered, there were two broad schools of thought; that he had been murdered by a man acting alone (no conspiring) or he was murdered by a man[men] acting in coordination with others (conspiring.) Thus in this case you had people who believed the official narrative, and everybody else, who had theories "about conspiracies." This particular case seems to have been strong enough to effectively redefine the term "conspiracy" to mean any theory contrary to the official narrative.
The problem is that in other cases, such as 9/11, the official narrative is a theory about a conspiracy. As are all of the alternative theories. In the case of something like 9/11, literally everybody agrees the numerous perpetrators conspired with each other; the disagreement arises over who exactly those conspirators were. In the 'proper' sense of the term "conspiracy theory", everybody believes at least some conspiracy theories. But in this new modern sense of the term, "conspiracy theory" applies to only to those who contradict the officially endorsed explanation of events.
(Incidentally in the specific case of JFK, only a minority of Americans believe the official one-man narrative: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-one-thing-in-politi... Was it the mafia, the CIA, the Russians? Somebody else? Who fucking knows. But most people don't believe Oswald acted alone.)
The problem is trust, and many of the world's governments and corporations (I would probably argue most) have proven to be unworthy of the public trust.
Really sad bonus thought: If you see what happened in the aftermath of 9-11, and look at how much money is made from warfare - how much of a stretch do you think it is for an otherwise typical person to believe it's an inside job?
This is why I don't watch the news anymore.
I would say some of the things that he premised on was true. But the idea he developed base on those things are nuts. it's not how he communicated them, it's just what it is.
(example not necessarily from Alex Jones, but just e.g)
US flag furled up on the moon (correct) -> like the wind blew on it (visual observation) -> it means the wind must have blown on it (fallacy) -> we never went to the moon.
Jet fuel cannot melt steel (maybe? correct) -> Therefore the fire it had on the world trade center cannot cause structural failure (does your chocolate not soften before it melts?) -> US did 911.
The premise can be true, the idea can still be bs.
There is a ~40min video in my profile that is just footage from the day and mainstream technical talks afterwards.
That's not an ordinary difference of political opinion. One side or the other is engaging in conspiracy-theory thinking, at a vast level. (Or, I suppose, both.) I don't just mean that they're talking about a conspiracy, but applying all the hallmarks of paranoia, shifting goalposts, and bad faith that mark conspiracy theorists.
And that's just one example. It applies down the line, of many issues. This is the one that perhaps illustrates it best, but it's not mere partisanship. It's people needing to be "brought back to earth", as you said, but at a level involving many millions of people.
That's the kind of talk that leads to re-education camps.
I'm also not proposing solutions. I'm sure there are many who would propose re-education camps -- that, too, is an indicator of the magnitude of the problem.
I'm actually quite short on ideas for solving it.
This idea that you're only allowed a platform once you've been "fixed" is exactly what pushes people towards conspiracy theories in the first place. It's a reaction to authoritarian mono-culture.
Unfortunately they wasted their credibility over the years and can’t be trusted to be reasonably unbiased and without agenda.
Conspiracy theories happen whether the media is trustworthy or not. They existed many hundreds of years before there was mass media.
There's just something about certain people that makes their brains click, "That logical thing doesn't make sense to me. But this crazy thing does. And I need to tell everyone about it."
The internet has enabled the third part of that like never before.
Before the internet, it was whackjobs in online fora. Before that they were on BBSes. Before that, shortwave radio. Before that, books, pamphlets, fly posters, leaflets, and handbills. Before that, they would just stand on street corners shouting.
Most of the non-electronic methods still exist and are used frequently. From the guy with the megaphone walking around the Chicago Loop bitching about the FBI in his brain to Screamin' Jesus on the street corner of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.
The promise of the internet was to give everyone an "equal voice." We probably should have solved mental health first.