> How do you even begin to "meet in the middle" or have reasonable conversations with people who believe in that stuff?

This is the Overton Window on steroids. I've struggled to put aside my partisanship in discussions with different opinions, I have trouble even when the other person is being rational and informed, but to go against flat-out-batshit-insanity?

How did that happen? Did we just assume people always want to be smarter, and that was wrong?