This is a real problem in attempting to change the political dialectic in this nation, whether it is to get people to understand that they have been (deliberately) misled or to get those who in spite of evidence to the contrary continue to perpetuate the conventional wisdom, be it on economics, political strategy, or motivating voters.
As it happens I am reading a book by Mario Livio titled Brilliant Blunders with subtitling that looks like this: From Darwin to Einstein: Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Change Our Understanding of Life and the Universe I am about 1/3 of the way through it and highly recommend it.
There was a passage that caught my attention that I think is relevant for this site. It was written in the context of the refusal of Lord Kelvin for a long time to readjust his thinking on the age of the earth in light of arguments and data to the contrary. Here is the paragraph, from p.96, that caught my attention:
At a somewhat deeper stratum, Kelvin's blunder probably stemmed from a well-recognized psychological trait: The more committed we are to a certain opinion, the less likely we are to relinquish it, even if confronted with massive contradictory evidence. (Does the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" ring a bell?) The theory of cognitive dissonance, originally developed by psychologist Leon Festinger, deals precisely with those feelings of discomfort that people experience when presented with information that is inconsistent with their beliefs. Multiple studies show that to relive cognitive dissonance, in many cases, in stead of acknowledging an error in judgment, people tend for reformulate their views in a new way that justifies their old opinions.
I see this behavior sometimes among my students. I have to acknowledge that I have seen it on more than a few occasions here at Daily Kos. And I accept that I have something of that tendency myself, although being aware of it my reaction is not automatic. Besides, being a lifelong learner has required me to be willing to change my mind about things that I had held dear before. In my case that includes previous religious affiliation.
Anyhow, I thought it worth putting up this probably useless post in case the words might be of value to someone else.
Peace.