Scott Adams says Trump critics may scare him to vote: 'They're coming for you next'

We are becoming a nation of skeptics, and it’s at an all-time level.”

It wasn't until the 60s when television replaced newspapers as the primary source of information for most people, especially younger people, that Americans were lulled into the sort of trance that most loyal democrats are still in.

IMHO the roots of the problem go back a lot further than that. All the way back to the telegraph, in fact. Morse demo’ed the Baltimore-Washington telegraph in 1844, and the foundation of the Associated Press began before 1850. And there are of course other wire services - but “competitive or not,” wire services always tend to homogenize journalism.
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)
Plainly, the AP “wire” is a virtual meeting of all major journalism outlets - one which does not end at all, let alone ending before generating “a conspiracy against the public.”

Increasing skepticism isn't the problem, not even a problem. The amazing lack of skepticism is the problem.

The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing. The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things concerning which we believe him, our leader and director, and we look up to him with a certain degree of esteem and respect. But as from admiring other people we come to wish to be admired ourselves; so from being led and directed by other people we learn to wish to become ourselves leaders and directors . . .
The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
Here Adam Smith not only asserts your thesis that skepticism is in short supply, he tells us what journalists’ motives are - and thus what “a conspiracy against the public” by journalists would promote. See my tagline . . .

You could go back to Andy Jackson, too, but until after WWI this was a nation of regions Regional markets, regional newspaper powerhouses, regional politics and so on with a national market still struggling to replace the regionalism that was the dominate force prior to WWI.

After WWII, though, everyone and everything focused on eliminating regional cohesion and regional markets turning the US into a single nearly monolithic audience. Regionalism was nearly dead when the Dixiecrat movement tried to rebuild at least a part and failed.

That's what the Boomers grew up in, a nation where massive effort was being put into totally destroying regionalism and local interests whether it was through cookie cutter news at six or ever more common national chains like K-mart and McDonalds replacing both Mom & Pop business and regional chain stores.

By the eighties, same pizza, same hamburger, and same clothes for sale in Anchorage, Beloxi, Casper, Dodge City, etc. Nothing to disturb the self-image Boomers had drummed into them to convince them they were all part of the same happy, wonderful, Californication that everyone else was a part of. Cookie cutter hippies gave way to cookie cutter yuppies gave way to the next nationally advertised self-image available at any magazine rack and on every television channel 24/7.

The only skepticism left was at the occasional 'Bridge Too Far' ad when the lady of the house responded negatively because she knew that no matter which swimsuit she chose she wasn't going to weigh twenty pounds less and be walking a leopard down the beach in Jamaica any time no matter what she wore.

You could go back to Andy Jackson, too

The telegraph was a disruptive technology.
I mean that in the sense that it took a cultural shift to get used to the possibility of essentially instantaneous transcontinental communication. The two big “killer apps” of the telegraph were:

Wire news services, and
Command and control of the railroads.
I have discussed the effect of the wire services, and will do so further. But to fathom the change in mindset that instantaneous communication beyond the line of sight made, consider the origin of the use of telegraph in command and control of the railroads. It seems that a VP of a railroad line was traveling, and - as often happened - his train came to a stretch of single-track line. His train waited on the siding for sight of the train slated to use that stretch of track next - coming in the opposite direction of his train. Train accidents happened all the time, and they especially happened when an engineer failed to wait for an opposite-direction train to pass before getting on a single track stretch of railroad.
So, our VIP sat around cooling his heels while the engineer, following mandatory protocol, waited for the oncoming train to pass. And he waited. And he waited. And he waited.
Finally, he had enough - and finally he used the telegraph (telegraph lines always used RR right of way to string their wires) to ask the stationmaster what the story was. He was told that the train in question was being repaired. He replied that his train would be using that line of track, and that the oncoming train was on no account to proceed until his train cleared it. Then he directed the engineer of his train to proceed. The engineer flatly refused. If you valued your life, you simply did not do that. And the engineer could not be persuaded by the VP of his company to proceed. The VP finally said, OK. You get in the caboose where you’ll be safe, and I’ll run the train into the next station. And that was the origin of command and control of trains via telegraph.
The story illustrates the cultural shift involved in telegraph communication. It was spooky to be able to do that. We are culturally different from that engineer; we think nothing at all of communicating worldwide without even a wire. The point is that we constantly receive messages over vast distances - from people that we don’t even know, any more than you know me (but, internet joke to the contrary notwithstanding, I’m pretty sure I know you are not a dog).
The trouble is that the journalists have exploited that cultural shift by claiming a form of omniscience (“journalistic objectivity”) and, because it was in the interest of every journalist on every wire service, have successfully conducted a massive propaganda campaign persuading the public to buy it. People are so hooked on knowing “what is going on” that they will believe just about anything from a journalist. And journalists, for their part at least historically, have restricted their deceit primarily to half-truths rather than outright lies. With the internet, that system seems to be breaking down.

disrupt - interrupt (an event, activity, or process) by causing a disturbance or problem.

"The telegraph was a disruptive technology. "

Disruption leads to less skepticism, not more ?

"I have discussed the effect of the wire services, and will do so further."

You have discussed the fact that wire services made the same information available to large or small newspapers. You haven't made the case that the telegraph making the same information available to all competitors decreased the amount of skepticism with which the average person viewed government and/or large businesses.

Until the 1960s concentration of economic power had always led to individuals becoming more skeptical of both businesses and government the larger each got.

The image based era television ushered in relied on government controlled airwaves neither individuals or small business could access without paying a company afilliated with owner of one of the limited number of available licenses that granted access to the airwaves.

Shortly thereafter the sheep ceased to even bleat when the sheepdogs were openly taking bribes from the wolves. An obvious reduction in the amount of skepticism.

have a nice day

have a nice day

~~Despite~~ ^{Because of} the fact that you are inclined to debate my thesis, I am very interested in discussing the matter with you. To the extent that you will be patient and continue a dialogue, it seems likely that you will point me in (at least a little) better direction. Everyone thinks their own opinion is right, or they wouldn’t hold that opinion.

wire services made the same information available to large or small newspapers. You haven't made the case that the telegraph making the same information available to all competitors decreased the amount of skepticism with which the average person viewed government and/or large businesses.

Giving information to all newspapers large or small sounds wonderful. How else does the newspaper in rural Mississippi know about a disaster in San Francisco? Who can argue with that?
Well, I can, and do. The problem is not what “information” a little paper in the sticks knows that’s true - the first problem is what is true that that little paper does not know and does not care about. And - secondarily, at least until recently - there is the “information” that that little paper in the sticks "knows that" (as Will Rodgers put it) "just ain’t so.” In the category of “known” but untrue “facts” we must, however put one thing which has been prominent in wire service journalism for about a century and a half. Namely, the fatuous conceit that journalists are objective.
Nobody can know that they are objective, and belonging to a mutual admiration society of people who swear to each others’ objectivity cannot change that. It absolutely is desirable to try to be objective. And it is certainly within bounds to say that you are trying to be objective - if you are. I hope you are. But if you as a journalist claim that you (or, same difference, that everyone in your mutual admiration society) actually are objective, what you are really saying that you don’t even have to really try to be objective. And that, therefore, you actually aren’t really trying to be objective.
Back to the category of “things that are so, but aren’t reported.” It obviously is impossible to know everything, and it even is impractical (not to say unedifying) to report everything that you know in every newspaper. That wouldn’t be a newspaper, it would be an encyclopedia. So there are standard guidelines for what does get in a newspaper. First, “There’s nothing more worthless than yesterday’s newspaper.” Is Christ’s resurrection real? Yes - but it’s already been said, so it doesn’t go in the newspaper. Not even if the editor is a Christian. Topicality is a perspective. Or, if you will, a “bias.”
Second, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Bad news grips the attention, so - for commercial, not philosophical reasons - bad news is featured in any newspaper. If you want good news, look at the advertisements - you have to pay journalists to print good news. And that expresses a perspective, too. You show me bad news that isn’t a natural disaster - and sometimes, even if it is - and I’ll show you a occasion to say that society should have done something different. IOW, that “There oughta be a law.”

Until the 1960s concentration of economic power had always led to individuals becoming more skeptical of both businesses and government the larger each got.

It is my thesis that homogeneity in news reporting is due to the Associated Press, and that before it existed newspapers were about the perspective of their printers. If you saw that the newspaper openly reflected the politics of the printer, you would naturally be skeptical of the paper whose printer disagreed with you politically.
What the AP gave us is the conceit of journalistic objectivity, promoted both for commercial and political reasons. The commercial reasons had political implications - namely, cynicism towards society implies naiveté towards government. Any form of tyranny will be supported by naiveté towards government and by cynicism towards the leaders of society outside of government. The conceit of journalistic objectivity is an assault on skepticism towards government. You can say that it promotes extreme skepticism of business, but given the implication of naiveté towards government, cynicism itself is a form of naiveté.

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