Lots of people are truly incapable of independent thought, sadly especially in rural areas. At the risk of pissing off people here who are rural - I've lived there and in urban environments, and it is clear that a large percentage of the "cream of the crop" of the rural people leave, heading to places (cities) where they can get good jobs and enjoy their lives. Coupled with GOP attempts to destroy our education system over decades, this tends to leave vacuum/echo chambers that Fox (IMO, Russian agents) and cynical pols (also in some cases, Russian agents, or just greedy bastards) like to exploit.