text: Nice article. I especially appreciate the distinction between "gullibility" and "knowing". The non-reaction to Mrs. Trump's plagiarism and Mariah Carey's bad lip-syncing can be attributed to the maturing of our culture, rather than it's growing indifference to substance.  For, if the viewer already understands political discourse and pop performances to be strictly superficial, the crumbling edifice is merely an aesthetic issue - we already know what is underneath.