It turns out facts are irrelevant for at least 95% of people. The human brain is hardwired to believe whatever it receives from purported authoritative sources and once the belief is in place, the tens of thousands of neural connections can't be unpicked. Studies have conclusively shown that when real-world facts contradict our beliefs we resolutely ignore the facts and double-down on our belief, no matter how risible it may be, because that's the least-effort approach and we're evolved to conserve effort whenever possible. This is one of the hundreds of reasons why our fixation on qualification-free representative democracy is such a catastrophe - ordinary people have a jumble of fantasy beliefs in their brains and are totally averse to interacting with complex reality. Hence they vote for whoever proffers the easiest-to-chant atavistic soundbite. Hence Trump et al.