I had this shock decades ago when I moved from Minneapolis to Houston. Neither place has changed much since then. What has changed is national politics and the laws regarding the news. Thanks to first Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, and then strengthened by both Rs and Ds, lying on the news has gone from lying by omission to straight up lying - for the profits of the MIC, big pharma and Wall Street (overall).

The CNN straight up lie about Joe Rogan about ivermectin is a perfect example of this. Of course people who don't like Joe Biden are going to believe all kinds of crazy conspiracies that aren't real, because we are constantly seeing conspiracies that ARE real being revealed. When Trump was in office it was the other side that believed insane stories like "the pee tape" because Trump was lying all the friggin' time and being caught at it.

Our national politicians are now nearly 100% bought and paid for by our oligarchs. They want people in barbershops to argue about wearing masks and not about why working class people of all colors and political persuasions are making the same money as they did in the 1980s, while those at the top are making so much money they couldn't spend it in a million lifetimes.