Can you imagine a world where baseless claims gain legions of followers?

At a family gathering in Bayonne, NJ, not long after John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, my great-aunt Masha said something I remember nearly 60 years later: Lady Bird Johnson was behind the assassination.

Of course, she had no proof. Just an unbending belief that Lady Bird wanted her husband, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, to be president. So she had JFK killed.

The members of my family – as opinionated as they were outspoken about current events, or anything – quickly and loudly dismissed and derided that baseless opinion.

But you know what would happen today, when the echo chamber of the internet and social media spreads false theories as fast as you can tap a computer key?

Not only would Aunt Masha’s claim gain instant credibility and countless followers, my great-aunt - a supervisor of seamstresses - would soon be hosting her own website, podcast or online show. Her followers – surely including some wacky but apparently credibly-credentialed types – would offer “evidence,” when there was absolutely none.

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This is what happens today, when theories with zero proof are believed by millions because of that echo chamber. That’s how wackadoodle beliefs about JFK Jr. returning to become vice president under a reinstated Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a pizza shop gained countless believers.

But it’s not so wackadoodle when millions of Americans cling to beliefs of grave personal, national and international importance that are demonstrably false, such as: Trump actually won the 2020 election because of massive voter fraud, or the COVID vaccine is more dangerous than COVID because it causes deadly diseases, changes your DNA or is a way for the government to implant microchips in us.

Never mind that, like my Aunt Masha’s claim, there is zero proof of these beliefs. After more than 50 lawsuits by Trump followers (most of which didn’t even allege fraud), and more than a year after the election, not one instance of voter fraud that would overturn the results has been proved. And if the COVID vaccine was really as harmful as some claim, don’t you think millions and millions of the 214 million Americans who are fully vaccinated would be desperately ill or be dying from it?

But logic, facts, science and vote recounts all too often don’t matter today. Millions of us still choose not to believe the facts because lies are not only amplified online, but on mainstream TV outlets like Fox.

So what can we do?

This is where the columnist in me is supposed to come up with some logical, practical solution, like checking and double-checking facts from various independent and trusted sources, like Factcheck.org or PolitiFact.

But the reality is that despite the truth, millions of us will still choose to believe that echo chamber of "alternative facts" – which are really lies.

So of course, we should point out those facts whenever we can. We should also vote in every local, state and national election for those who speak the truth and refute lies.

And we should remember to celebrate the truth of all the goodness in our lives. Like the 8-year-old grandson of a colleague whose thirst for knowledge is so strong, he just picked a book off his family’s shelf - about FDR’s New Deal - and started reading, even though he had to go slow because he didn’t recognize some words. Or the mystery and power of the enduring love between my in-laws, Peg, 95, and Joe, 97, who just celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary.

These are truths no lie can change.

steveisrael53@outlook.com

This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: Without proof, baseless claims gain cult followings, clouding truth