Very well said. Unfortunately, many people are non-curious, not skeptical and too lazy to do serious research. They will believe whatever you tell them, particularly if you tell them over and over again. So you hit on the answer: Right wing, pro-Russian media like Fox, OAN, Bannon, etc. feed people disinformation and propaganda over and over again. The listeners believe it completely.

In addition, in any society, about one third of the people are very receptive to the idea of having a strong authoritarian leader. These people are easy to convince that Putin is the hero, and that we should have leaders more like Putin. This is why maintaining a democracy is so extraordinarily difficult.