> But almost everything Chomsky writes runs against the "common sense"
> of Americans. [...] And you can't fight that ingrained common sense
> through repeated factchecking. It's great for the base, but beyond
> that, you might as well be speaking Frisian.
>
Chomsky doesn't claim that ingrained common sense can be fought through repeated factchecking. His answer isn't necessarily sufficient, but least he has an answer: He says common sense can only be changed through mass participation in social movements. Yeah, but isn't that hard? Sure, but you have to try. Usually you'll fail, but sometimes you'll succeed. I think that's the Chomsky prescription in a nutshell.
And at least he's got history on his side. The rare moments in history when mass common sense changed, it was usually through the work of mass social movements. I'm guessing your critique of Chomsky's factchecking is by way of a defense of Judith Butler-style work. It won't work to just expose the true facts, you have to figure out why people are so resistant to the facts. Sure, but however true and interesting Butler's insights are, they're not particularly novel. I suspect if you summarized them to an old CIO organizer, he or she would probably nod their head in agreement, and rattle off a bunch of anecdotes to prove the point.
Seth