No, it's largely the media. Compare what passes for political journalism from, say the New York Times to the rest of the world and it becomes clear that the US media politics coverage is in its best form mere both-sidesism.

Most people who were tricked were people who don't pay much attention, and might only get a few articles of news, if anything. When the media doesn't tell people that there are plans for mass deportations at numbers that require legal immigrants to be deported, then the media is lying to its consumers. When the media is not willing to report that Project 2025 is Trump's plan, and instead places Trump's lie about ignorance on the same footing as the reality of people saying it is his plan, then the media lies to people.

Media consumers expect that journalists will react normally to extreme news. But instead the media is normalizing extremely unpopular and ridiculous policies that everybody would hate if they knew what the media knew.

I know large families of Mexican descent who have lived in the US for generations, that had many Trump voters in the recent election, from people that don't follow much news, and believed ridiculous things like Trump being a "Peace President." As you might imagine, there's a bit of intense discussion these days about how they were tricked into voting for secret police that will imprison family members and detain them for days without cause. If somebody reads a single article, they shouldn't have to read 5 more in order to get the real story merely because the media was more concerned about normalizing Trump's views than it was about reacting like a normal person would to the insanity of Trump.

Do people have personal responsibility to be better informed? Sure! But when they go to CBS they should get a real news article, not glazing of the most radical opinions out there on the political spectrum.