'Do Your Own Research': How the Rabbit Hole Actually Works
One thing you learn pretty quickly is that extremism rarely starts with someone saying: “Join my extremist movement.”
Trygve Olson is a strategist, pro-democracy fighter and a founding Lincoln Project advisor. Subscribe to his Searching for Hope Substack.
If you spend any time in American politics right now, you’ve heard the phrase:
“Do your own research.”
On the surface, that sounds like a healthy instinct. Democracies work best when citizens are curious and informed.
But over the last decade, the phrase has taken on a very different role.
More often than not, “do your own research” is the on-ramp to a political rabbit hole.
I’ve spent a big part of my career working around political movements — some healthy, some not — both here in the United States and abroad. One thing you learn pretty quickly is that extremism rarely starts with someone saying:
“Join my extremist movement.”
Instead, it starts with something that sounds empowering.
“Don’t trust the system.”
“Ask questions.”
“Look into it yourself.”
Curiosity is good. Skepticism can be healthy.
But the phrase often hides a very predictable four-step path.
Step 1: Tear Down Trust
The first step is always the same: undermine trust in institutions.
Government.
Journalists.
Scientists.
Universities.
Courts.
Elections.
The message is simple:
“They’re lying to you.”
Once someone accepts that premise, the guardrails disappear. If every institution is corrupt, then any alternative explanation suddenly seems possible.
That’s when the real influence begins.
Step 2: Redefine ‘Research’
Here’s where the trick happens.
When people say, “Do your own research,” they rarely mean actual research.
What they usually mean is:
Search Google.
Watch a few YouTube videos.
Scroll a Telegram channel.
Ask ChatGPT.
None of those things are inherently bad tools. But search results and AI outputs aren’t research.
They’re information aggregators.
They show you patterns based on what already exists online — and increasingly based on what you’ve clicked before.
Which means the answers can quickly become self-reinforcing.
The more you search within a narrative, the more the internet shows you things that confirm that narrative.
It feels like independent discovery.
But a lot of the time it’s confirmation loops powered by algorithms.
Real research works differently
It involves primary sources, competing explanations, and evidence that challenges your assumptions.
It’s slow. It’s uncomfortable. And it often leaves you less certain than when you started.
Step 3: The Psychology Kicks in
Once someone starts down the rabbit hole, psychology does the rest.
Extremist movements tend to appeal to something very human: the desire for simple answers to complicated problems.
Complex reality is messy. Politics is messy. History is messy.
But conspiracy narratives and extremist ideologies offer something much cleaner:
One explanation. One villain. One solution.
Psychologists sometimes call part of this the overconfidence effect.
The less someone understands about a complicated issue, the more likely they are to feel certain about their conclusions.
It’s not stupidity. It’s human nature.
When a narrative gives someone the feeling that they’ve “figured it out” while everyone else is blind to the truth, that confidence can become addictive.
Step 4: Identity and Isolation
Eventually the research stops being about evidence and becomes about identity.
You’re no longer just someone asking questions.
You’re someone who “sees what others can’t.”
The language shifts:
“Wake up.”
“People are sheep.”
“They don’t want you to know.”
At that point, disagreement from friends or family doesn’t challenge the belief.
It reinforces it.
Because if everyone else is wrong, then their skepticism becomes proof that you’re right.
That’s how people end up living inside information bubbles that feel like enlightenment.
The Real Test of Research
Real research requires something that extremist ecosystems don’t reward:
intellectual humility.
It means accepting that the world is complicated.
It means being willing to read things that challenge your assumptions.
It means understanding that expertise exists for a reason — even if experts are sometimes wrong.
Most importantly, real research means being able to say:
“I might be mistaken.”
That’s not weakness.
That’s how learning actually works.
A Better Way to ‘Do Your Own Research’
If we’re serious about the phrase, here are four better rules:
Start with primary sources whenever possible.
Read people who disagree with you.
Pay attention to incentives — who benefits from the narrative.
Be willing to update your beliefs when the evidence changes.
In other words:
Curiosity is good.
But curiosity without humility can lead people exactly where bad actors want them to go.
And the goal of research shouldn’t be to prove you’re right.
It should be to get closer to the truth.
 | A guest post by
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The folks who desperately need to “do their own research” are, in the case of Trumpists, largely unequipped by education or experience to do it. For them chat gpt or google, truth social or the site formerly known as twitter, or their neighbor’s nephew’s buddy, are all legitimate sources. Or the dulcet tones of Dear Leader Donald J Trump…the true source. And that’s just the ones who can read. Or who do read. Critical thinking? Informed source material? Decency? Nah…..entirely too woke for real Mericans…….
I am a centrist independent. I am old enough (78) to say I would be a Rockefeller Republican if either word still had any meaning. For me, that meant being a social liberal or even progressive at the same time being a fiscal conservative.
I check Fox News at least one daily because I believe that real research means you know what the opposition is thinking and saying. It also allows me to hold a reasonably civil discussion with my neighbors.
I have several email accounts across different providers. I rotate them. I clear my cookies once or twice a day. I avoid Google whenever possible, preferring DuckDuckGo. I use a VPN.