That's what I'm saying though: those masses of people don't want to self-sacrifice any more than the wealthy do, and are therefore likely to believe whatever excuse they can grab onto so they don't have to, and the wealthy will push the excuses.
We saw this same exact scenario with climate change. Big Oil knew it was a problem decades ago and did everything they could to deny it and push narratives to the public that allowed them to deny it too. People tend to choose to believe what they want to believe and the only way around that is to beat them over the head with the truth, but as long as doing so doesn't serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful it won't be done.
We saw this same exact scenario with climate change. Big Oil knew it was a problem decades ago and did everything they could to deny it and push narratives to the public that allowed them to deny it too. People tend to choose to believe what they want to believe and the only way around that is to beat them over the head with the truth, but as long as doing so doesn't serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful it won't be done.