When it's finally habbening, gonna be a lot of minds blown. There are 3 important causes for why normies, especially otherwise very intelligent people, can see the world the way they do…
You see it every day… people you respect, you admire, you trust. Smart people, educated citizens with families and successful lives. Those who have helped to shape you, guide you, who've been models for you to emulate.
At some point, you diverged from them. You began to see things differently. it was a long road, but in time your willingness to look under the tent, behind the curtain, around the corner, led to places unseen. Why hadn't they bothered to look? If they had, would they believe what they saw? Most would not. Why? What differentiates you from them? Were they simply incurious?
Many - especially post 9/11, then again over the last eight years' social justice "awakening" - aren't lacking for convictions. But why have these otherwise stable "others" arrived at their (popular) conclusions when they're so obviously incorrect?
-Apathy: They're incurious. Many are simply disinterested in news/history/geopolitics. There's a high cost of admission… it takes a great deal of time to get fluent in current events, and for (most?) the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
Cognitive Dissonance: Holding two competing concepts as truths - simultaneously. Most aren't aware of the hypocrisy inherent in their competing beliefs.
Misplaced Trust: We're surrounded - worldwide - by voices espousing one ideology. An ideology ostensibly "of the people." Academia. Media. Science. Even the military. Many defer to the handsome man in the suit reading the news… the learned professor grading your papers… the soft-spoken voice on NPR. These people offer one perspective, a unified voice, and their "take" is hard for the uninitiated to discount. Surely they wouldn't be as successful as they are if they were wildly incorrect… right?