These lies aren't meant to persuade the skeptical of what isn't true. They're meant to reassure those who are already convinced.

When Trump says he only lost the popular vote because of illegal voters, what he's doing is reassuring his followers WHY he lost the popular vote (which even he must concede to be true). The reassuring lie is that there are millions of Mexicans and other illegals out there who have been organized by the Democrats into a massive fraud. That preserves the phenomenon and fits in with the official version: The Trump voter is vast prepondereance of the American electorate, not just a minority clinging to a few rural enclaves in the flyover.

His followers are not about to be tempted into studying the American election infrastructure and all the reporting and scholarship that describes it. They are presented instead with a convenient alternate fact that quickly dismisses their initial fear (that Donald is not supported by the majority of Americans) and replaces it with the comforting fiction that crooked liberals are constantly working behind the scenes to allow evil to triumph. And anything we say to contradict this is easily dismissed as over-intellectualization and navel gazing, or skillful lies meant to cover up WHAT OBVIOUSLY MUST BE TRUE. For them, that's the role of the mainstream media, to cover up the real truth they, the real Americans, know must be true. This is why they not only need a foreign "other", they also need a domestic "traitor" who works with them. Communists and Jews.

Of course, not all Conservatives believe this. But the smart ones justify it because it strengthens those attitudes and conceptions that really matter, namely, that services, taxes and regulations must be cut because the well-to-do are so abused and the greedy workers need to be kicked in the ass so they'll pull their own weight for a change.

You cannot reason with fascism. Facts won't stop these people because they are being manipulated, and they respond, on a purely emotional level. And when you use emotional means to reach them, such as entertainment, particularly music and movies, TV, etc, not only can they be reached, but the fascists will quickly recognize what is going on.

That's why they hate the Hollywood elite, and the music industry, and the literati, and in fact all the arts and artists and scriveners, the intellectuals and the journalists, the Kollege Perfessers. They don't have anything like that, and they can't compete with it. They have to discredit this "liberal-controlled" communications complex, and do their best to establish one of their own.

This is all right out of Goebbels.