There I is, I believe, a concerted effort by those with nefarious intent to condition the electorate to believe all kinds of nonsense in order to achieve their goals.
And IMO, the first among those goals is to achieve and maintain power.
Take the issues of religion, guns, abortion and gay rights. Each of those are hot button issues that are rolled out on a regular basis. My conjecture is that these are m often just expedient issues to get the public excited. These issues can be used to achieve political power, which can then be used to serve a multitude of interests which constitute the big payoff for the power structures.
