In the aftermath of the 2016 election, a dominant narrative emerged among elite media and political institutions: that Russian interference—particularly via Facebook ads—had a decisive impact on the outcome. This idea became the justification for an ever-expanding push toward content moderation, “disinformation” crackdowns, and the surveillance of online discourse. But what if this premise is fundamentally flawed?
Enter Hugo Mercier’s Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe. In it, Mercier flips the script: humans, he argues, did not evolve to be easily manipulated. In fact, when it comes to core interests—politics, values, identity—we’re astonishingly resistant to persuasion. The idea that a few thousand rubles’ worth of Facebook ads could change the course of a presidential election isn’t just unproven—it’s anthropologically naive.
The Elite’s Gullibility Panic
Elite commentary often rests on an implicit assumption: the public is too stupid or fragile to sort signal from noise. Hence the calls for more fact-checking, algorithmic downranking, and government-private partnerships to “protect democracy.” From New York Times op-eds to White House initiatives, there’s a steady drumbeat: Americans were duped by memes, bots, and troll farms, and must be protected—by experts.
But this worldview collapses under Mercier’s insight. Evolution would not have designed humans to fall for claims that risk their survival. People may be misinformed, but that’s not the same as gullible. It’s a rational skepticism calibrated for a noisy world. What looks like resistance to “truth” is often just resistance to manipulation—especially when it comes from institutions people don’t trust.
The Absurdity of the Facebook Ad Panic
Consider the core claim: that Russian Facebook ads swayed voters. As WaPo reported, most ads ran after the election. The total spend was less than what a local car dealership might drop in a weekend campaign. And the targeting? Crude, broad, and mostly ineffective. Yet elite institutions inflated this into a democracy-threatening conspiracy. Why?
Because it let them avoid reckoning with the real reason Trump won: millions of Americans rejected elite consensus. The Russia panic became a form of elite self-soothing. If voters were tricked, it wasn’t our policies, blind spots, or condescension that failed—it was outside manipulation.
Mercier vs. the Censorship Industrial Complex
Mercier shows that persuasion works best when it aligns with pre-existing motivations and trusted messengers. Random political ads from a foreign troll farm don’t meet that standard. Neither do “corrective” fact-checks from institutions already seen as biased. In fact, overzealous censorship can increase mistrust, making people double down on their views. As Mercier writes, people are more like “argumentative filterers” than passive absorbers. We reason socially, not mechanically.
So when elites advocate for social media censorship “for the public good,” they’re working from a model of human cognition that doesn’t exist. They imagine citizens as blank slates to be safeguarded by better-informed elites. But Mercier reminds us: humans are stubborn, skeptical, and often wiser than their rulers give them credit for.
Real Clarity Requires Real Respect
Accepting Mercier’s insight changes how you view the media panic around disinformation. It doesn’t mean bad actors don’t exist or that lies never spread—it means we shouldn’t build surveillance states or speech police based on imagined mass gullibility. Ordinary people, especially when engaged and informed, are better BS detectors than they’re given credit for.
The true threat isn’t citizen gullibility—it’s elite fragility. Their fear that the public might think for itself leads to demands for control. But if we believe in democracy, we must believe people can reason, argue, and choose for themselves. As Mercier makes clear, we weren’t born yesterday. And we’re not buying what the elite media is selling.
