BACKFIRE EFFECT:
Beliefs come
                       FIRST

Alex Jones, the Texas-based host of Infowars.com helped mainstream conspiracy theories become part of American life. Jones got his start in public access broadcasting in Austin, Texas, in the 1990s: from his early days on air, he spouted conspiracy theories. When his wild claims got him fired from a local radio station, he founded Infowars in 1999 and started broadcasting over the Internet and in radio syndication.

Source:[9]

Jones is the one who claimed that the Sandy Hook massacre of 2012, in which twenty children died, was a hoax; that wicked genetic engineers are breeding human-fish hybrids; and that a vampiric elite, including the Clintons, is engaged in satanic child abuse. According to Jones his conspiracist outbursts are heard by five million radio listeners every day and achieve eighty million video views a month.

Trump has appeared in his on his show, described his reputation as 'amazing', and reportedly called Jones after the election to thank him for his support ('he needs me' according to the presenter).

In the past, a man like Jones would have worn a sandwich board and yelled at passers-by in the street. Now he has access to the most powerful politician in the world. What is so important to recognize is that this reflects a structural change as well as an unfortunate personal affinity between the two braggarts.

The last century bequeathed to us a system of gradually evolving, rules-based institutions, a hierarchy of knowledge and authority, in which representative bodies interacted with the state according to tried and tested protocols. That structure is now being challenged by a lattice of networks, connected not by institutional bonds but by the viral power of social media, cyberspace and sites that revel in their loathing of the MSM.

The web has abolished the gulf between the centre and the periphery,
between the official and the fringe – which is how figure as Bannon, a self-proclaimed 'Leninist' of the Right, can end up as Trump's chief strategist, with unrestricted access to the President, and a man like Jones, who rants about 'interdimensional travel' and insists that Obama 'is al-Quaeda', apparently has the ear of the Commander-in-Chief.

These networks are also ideal vector for conspiracy theories.
In 2013, polls conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University found that 63 percent of registered American voters believed at least one such extraordinary claim (56 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of Republicans). The following year, Eric Oliver and Thomas Wood of the University of Chicago published research based on eight national surveys, conducted annually from 2006. They found that, in any given year, about 50 percent of the public subscribed to at least one conspiracy theory. Among the most significant were: the Birther claim that Barack Obama had not been born in Hawaii, but in Kenya; the Truther theory that US government was involved in the 9/11 attacks; and the belief that the US Federal Reserve was behind the 2008 financial crisis.

In his excellent study of conspiracy theories, the Times journalist David Aaronovitch suggests that the prevalence of such beliefs reflects a fundamental human yearning for narrative:

We need story and may even
be programmed to create it.

In this respect,

The paradox is that... conspiracy theories
are actually reassuring. They suggest that
there is an explanation, that human agencies
are powerful and that there is order rather
than chaos. This makes redemption possible.

They are, Aaronovitch argues, a visceral protest against indifference – though nonetheless harmful for that. They are also chime perilously with the priority accorded to emotion over evidence in the Post-Truth world.
As Rob Brotherton notes in his study of these theories,

We build a fortress of positive information
around our beliefs, and we rarely step outside –
or even peek out the window.

In our assessment of such claims, however outlandish, we apply what psychologists call a POSITIVE TEST STATEGY – looking for what we
expect to find.

This inclination is buttressed by 'biased assimilation': we assess ambiguity in the light of our existing convictions. If we are inclined to think that governments behave with pathological secrecy, often in collaboration with lawbreakers, we will tend to reject the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of John F. Kennedy. If we suspect that all corporations are inherently wicked, we will heed claims – made on whatever basis – that genetically modified crops are dangerous. The most profound such predisposition is religious belief. So when religion clashes with science, faith often prevails. As the findings of evolutionary research grow ever more exciting, creationism simply entrenches itself. It is remarkable to reflect at least one in three Americans still reject Darwinian science and believe that the world was created a few thousand years ago.

According to Brenda Nyhan, a political scientist Dartmouth College, presenting someone who believes in a conspiracy theory with evidence that it is unfounded can often reinforce his/her belief: the so-called backfire effect.
Like an infection resisting antibiotics, a virulent conspiracy theory can fend off even incontestable facts. Its popular strength depends not upon evidence, but upon feeling - the essence of Post-Truth culture. As the psychiatric Karl Menninger put it:
                       Attitudes are more
                                  important than facts.

Higher education offers no real insulation against magical thinking.
As Brotherton puts it:

Our beliefs come first; we make up reasons for them as we go along. Being smarter or having access to more information doesn't necessarily make us less susceptible to faulty beliefs.

Source:[1]