Yes - this and the previous post touch on something which isn't explored much, which is the generation of conspiracy theories as practical politics. Real democracy relies on informed opinion, so the best way to undermine democracy is to lie.

Social media have made it incredibly easy to get a spectacular return for a very small propaganda budget.

In the same way there's financial and political asymmetry between the extremely privileged and everyone else, there's also informational asymmetry.

Most of the population lives in an incredibly polluted mental and emotional atmosphere. Conspiracy theories are being used - like smoking - to create toxic and self-harming addictive behaviours.

This is a very different space to informed and educated debate which decides policy on merits and rational evaluation of likely outcomes.

It's more like Pavlovian conditioning of entire voter populations. This leaves the shell of a democracy, but the interior is poisoned by lies.