Comment by somenameforme

The reason they lie to the point of absurdity is because media giving up any notion of impartiality and going full ideological has led to a polarization in society (or perhaps it was vice versa - in any case, it is what has happened) and this has gradually led to people believing in caricatures of the "other side" which exist in only extreme cases. E.g. - conservatives believing liberals want to have children reading gay literature and defund the police. Or liberals believing that conservatives want to completely ban immigration and turn the US into some sort of white Christian ethnostate.

Each "side" does share clips of the other sides absurdities to galvanize themselves and their rightness, while simultaneously unquestioningly believing the absurdities their side posts. It's not reverse psychology.