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No, it's not senility. It's an intentional campaign to spread absurd ideas throughout the culture in order to justify the most atrocious attacks on the best in this country. Jake, ain't senile - he reads the talking points and repeats them.
They don't have to make any sense. As long as they're endlessly repeated, they will become part of the common wisdom. Fools who catch a few scraps will hear them over and over again, and believe them. And repeat them to other fools. They put the edge of acceptable conversation at such an extreme, that the middle of the conversation itself takes on a proto-fascist quality.
Remember, the Nazis never gained a majority in Germany. But they did shift the conversation so that the center-right became supporters of the Enabling Act in 33.
I don't see any value in treating these "people" as reasonable conversational partners. They are propagandists, and by treating them as anything else, their speech is legitimized.
