I remember the first Sunday after the 2020 election like it just happened. Joe Biden had beaten Donald Trump, and instead of a concession, Trump gave us talk of stolen votes, rigged machines, and conspiracies thick as molasses.

No proof, mind you. Just the usual, “A friend of a friend knows a guy.” Still waiting on any courtroom-worthy evidence. Sure, every election’s got a hiccup or two, but nothing big enough to flip the damn thing. I figured it was the usual sore-loser noise. America’s heard it before.

But the 21st century? That’s different. Social media changed the game. Now, stories, true or not, don’t crawl, they sprint.

I was sitting in my little Presbyterian church deep in the mountains of Southwest Virginia that Sunday, waiting on the preacher. Beside me sat Coach. Retired teacher, old-school football guy. Around here, once you’re a coach, you’re always Coach. Kind man. Sharp. I’ve known him my whole life. Moderate Republican, I’d say.

He leans over and says, calm as you please, “You know that election was stolen from Trump.”

Now, I could’ve done what a lot of urban Democrats do….rolled my eyes, thought he was ignorant, misled, getting old, stuck in a Fox News loop. But I didn’t.

I remembered what another Coach on TV,Ted Lasso, likes to say: “Be curious, not judgmental.”

So I turned to him and asked, “Why do you think that, Coach?”

Coach leans in, easy as Sunday morning…fitting, since it was Sunday morning, and says,

 “I’ve got hundreds of friends on Facebook, all over the place. Ain’t a one of them said a good thing about Biden. Nobody I know voted for him. Had to be stolen, just like the man said.”

And just like that, it hit me.

This wasn’t just politics. This was the social media algorithm talking. Feeding him a steady drip of what he already believed until it felt like gospel. That’s how these silos work. Call it social proof, herd mentality, pack thinking…doesn’t matter. When everyone around you, even online, says the same thing, you stop asking if it’s true. You just assume it must be. Especially when the folks saying it seem smart, or decent, or just like you.

Used to be, you’d hear a few different takes during the week. At work. At church. Down at the diner. You didn’t have to agree with folks, but at least you heard them.

Now? Not so much.

We’re living in digital bunkers. The algorithm seals us in, feeds us more of what we already like, already think, already want to be true. Not because it’s evil, because it makes money. The longer you stay, the more ads they sell.

Click a video about election fraud, and you’ll get a dozen more. Click a post trashing conservatives, and your feed turns into a Greatest Hits of Republican Villainy. It doesn’t matter what side you’re on. The algorithm’s got something for everybody, as long as it keeps you angry and scrolling.

After a while, folks are living in different realities. To one side, all Republicans are racist rubes. To the other, all Democrats are godless Marxists. And the middle? Gone dark. Buried under outrage and noise.

Thing is, these silos don’t just bend opinions. They build identities. When you hear the same thing enough, it stops being opinion and starts being who you are. And if someone pushes back? You don’t just disagree. You feel attacked.

That’s why I say MAGA’s got its silos, sure—but so do urban Democrats. It’s easy to call the other side stupid. Harder to admit you’re caught in the same trap, too.

In my last piece for Barn Raiser, I was lucky to have a lot of readers…and plenty of emails, too, mostly from self-proclaimed far-left progressives. A lot of them didn’t like what I had to say about why rural America keeps voting MAGA.

Some called rural folks ignorant, uneducated. A few tossed around stats comparing the number of college degrees in rural areas to urban ones, like that settled the matter.

To that, I’d just quote my Papaw—a WWII B-17 bomber pilot and dairy farmer from the Greatest Generation, who used to say, “Son, a college degree don’t make you smart. It just means you’re educated in one field. And that’s if you’re lucky.”

Besides, in my home county of Wise, way down in the Virginia coalfields, we consistently rank near the top of the state in high school Standards of Learning scores. But yeah, we also voted 83% for Trump last go-round. So maybe there’s something else going on.

Another popular criticism was folks quoting from White Rural Rage…the latest “threat to democracy” bestseller. Let me say this straight: if you’re an urban Democrat parroting that book, do yourself a favor and dig a little deeper and do a little research. Some of the country’s most respected scholars, folks with more degrees than a thermometer, have flat-out called it academic fraud. One even called it “clickbait for angry liberals” looking for someone to blame. And rural voters? Well, we’re an easy target.

But like I said earlier, the way out of these informational silos isn’t through more shouting or finger-pointing.

It starts with curiosity. A little humility. And maybe just asking the question I asked Coach that Sunday morning:

“Why do you think that?”

 Till next time, that’s the story from the ‘Back Forty’. — John W. Peace II

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John W. Peace II is a fifth-generation farmer from Big Stone Gap, Virginia, where he grew up on his family’s dairy, Clinch Haven Farms, and still lives today farming hay and beef cattle. He’s a proud father to Trey and Shelby Peace, and partner in life to Cathy Swinney. A Virginia Tech graduate with graduate studies at Penn State, he served as the youngest Chair of the Wise County Board of Supervisors (2004–2008). John co-owns SafeHavenServices.co and urTOPIX LLC (urTopixLLC.com), a Democratic campaign consulting firm focused on reaching rural voters that is sponsored by www.RuralAmericaRising.com PAC. He’s also a two-time Amazon bestselling author and member of the National Writers Union. Learn more at www.JohnWPeace.com.