> But respect is clearly not an outcome being achieved either at the local or the national level

This is true in the large picture, and certainly any respect or trust you might build is being undermined daily by both the tone and content of what people see online. But on a personal level - not just tactically or logistically - I do think there's a chance of finding common ground if you talk to each person you encounter as an individual worthy of respect. The range of what I consider lunatic beliefs in this country runs the full gamut, and people who can't make sense of the stew of (mis)information end up treating it like a buffet. But individual crazy beliefs can be gently corrected.

For instance, when the woman told me that child abuse had just been legalized in California, I said "that doesn't sound right." She insisted. So then she, her husband and I all googled it on our phones until we found the source of the rumor she had heard, and read through the actual law it was referring to. It's a new law which gives judges more latitude as to whether someone convicted of a sex offense has to be put on a life-long sex offender registry. I suggested it probably has to do with "Romeo and Juliet" situations in which it's unfair to put an 18 year old on a sex offender registry for having consensual sex with a 17 year old. Suddenly a light went on over this woman's head. Turns out, they have a son who just turned 18, whose girlfriend is 17, and they've been "real worried about it". Well, now this law doesn't seem so bad, and just maybe Gavin Newsom isn't drinking the blood of babies. Maybe she'll even tell her facebook friends that's not what it's about. But how would that happen if I'd just told her she was an idiot?

My Dad had this rule in the house that if he ever used a word we didn't know - which happened frequently - we had to take out the dictionary and look it up together. Once or twice, he even had to acknowledge that he had used something imprecisely. The pattern was: Admit if you don't know something; looking it up; acknowledge if your assumptions were incorrect; always seek out reliable sources to back your argument. This was so ingrained in me, and I took it so much for granted that others knew how to do that, that I often feel like a stranger in a strange land now. It took me a long time to realize that people just never had that experience. No one ever showed them that, so they could never get past the first part, admitting they don't know something. It's not that people are too dumb to do it, they just don't have access to that part of their intellect or the emotional capacity for self-doubt. Often because they grew up surrounded by people for whom acknowledging a lack of knowledge or admitting a mistake was seen as being weak.

This is why the people I'm talking about use phrases like "I did my own research" by which we know they mean something diametrically opposite to actual research. And why the dark patterns in social media that amplify echo chambers have such a stunningly asymmetrical effect in propagating lies over facts. "Confirmation bias" only exists when you're right and someone else is wrong - an in-group only exists when there's an out-group. So I think that showing the way past that first admission of possibly being wrong, and going straight to sources, whilst treating people with respect and not as a member of some other "group" just because they say foolish things, is how each of us can have the most impact in beating back the crazy.