Or perhaps they are questioning the authorities that have a track record of openly lying to them, as when, early the pandemic, the experts all said masks weren't very useful against Covid, not because they didn't know better but because supplies of decent masks were limited and they didn't want a run on them.

And you see a lot of lies like that from governments, the establishment, etc. Often their core supporters don't even experience the lies as lies, because the lies aren't meant to fool them. As when then primary-candidate Obama promised blue collar workers he'd tear up NAFTA, while sending messages to the Canadian government assuring them this was just a campaign lie. When it came out, it didn't kill Obama's political fortunes, because his core supporters all knew he was lying any way, to get those low information idiots onboard.

But the penalty for lying repeatedly to people you don't respect is that they eventually start to just assume everything you are saying is a lie. And it seems like a lot of Americans have reached that point with the government and its associated experts.