Yup.
I think, on both sides, it’s mostly a result of confirmation bias. When we run across something that lines up exactly with what we already believe, we are MUCH less likely to examine skeptically whether it is really true or not.
Or, as someone has put it, we like stories with truthiness.
I’ve fallen for it myself, most notably when I posted on FR Jefferson Davis’ Enslavement Proclamation he issued in response to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
I’ve got a pretty good eye for language as used in different periods, so I seldom fall for fake Lincoln or Jefferson quotes and the like.
It turned out this Enslavement Proclamation was from the 1860s equivalent of The Onion.
But it lined up so well with my belief system I swallowed it whole.
Real problem is our MSM and politicians aren’t making mistakes, they’re lying.
When there’s no such thing as truth, then there can be no facts. It’s all just ‘narrative’, innocents be damned. This is now entering sciences. Affirmative action in civil engineering and medicine are ushering a new, real Dark Ages.