It's the curse of being very online. Once upon a time being very online was niche behavior, but now everybody is. Only weirdos knew the type of stuff we talked about on this very fine blog 15 years ago, only weirdos watched cable news, and now everybody has those narratives forced on them because they get it through facebook, or twitter, or their push notifications. Even without watching cable news, we're all sort of watching cable news.
For Democrats it's MSNBC/CNN type stuff, and for Republicans it's the alternative universe of Fox/internet media. I'm not saying being a well-informed citizen should only be for the few, I'm saying that most of this bullshit makes you less informed, not more, about things that matter.
Very sophisticated news consumers, like the readers of this very fine blog, can put it in its propert context, but for people less attuned to the broader conext, the bullshit is reality.