Gaslighting, indeed! This is the point where one's past self promised they'd wake up and notice as a red flag. Even the sheep in the past have said stuff to themselves like well, as long as my government isn't doing ____, then I don't have to worry. Well that time that you have to worry has come, but you're so brainwashed, you're afraid to be called conspiracy theorists. Oh man, how easy it is to bait-and-switch the average idiot: get your foot in the door, distract while you do some gradual changes...and then finally enough gradual changes have been made that we're full-on exclaiming that obvious lies are the truth like we're the subjects of a conformity study.