This is why it doesn't help as much as you'd expect to provide better information, to expose a prominent member of the 'conspiracy' in a lie, or even to outright replace the public policy - the same culture and the same systems are still out there, resulting in a large fraction of the population reaching the same conclusions. Only education and cultural change (which are slow, operating on timescales of decades) can overcome this problem.
I think everyone is aware that America has a couple of structural issues that have existed and slowly gotten worse over the last decades. For example, the cost of healthcare and education keeps rising, while real incomes stay stagnant.
It feels like this is how we solve problems in America:
1. Organize a private think tank 2. Think tank recommends some targeted market or incentive-based intervention 3. Intervention is watered down through the political process 4. Problem finds a new equilibrium
We're culturally resistant to solutions that require:
1. Mass social compliance (e.g, stay at home) 2. Trust in higher authorities 3. Capping potential best outcomes (we are all temporarily embarrassed millionaires)