Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but the impression I got from the essay was not that it's a conscious choice per se but more of a passive acceptance of what feels comfortable.
In this alternative account people aren’t “brainwashed” insofar as they don’t actually believe the lies, not in the way that we generally understand belief. It’s more correct to say that they go along with them, whether enthusiastically or apprehensively, because it’s actually their optimal survival strategy.
The point being, western liberals and such aren't stupid fools being duped by masters of propaganda. They go along with it consciously or otherwise because it's in their interest to do so. A big pile of ugly, depressing truths is a pretty immediate turn-off for a lot of people's brains, especially when the reward you get for your trouble is accepting that the world sucks even more than you knew and that everyone around you will think you're an insane conspiracy theorist.
Accept instead that they have been avoiding those truths for a reason.
I can't speak for everyone, but my gut reaction in my liberal years to seeing an article or essay I didn't like was to retreat to one of my liberal circle jerks to feel superior about it. The psychological reward for reinforcing your existing beliefs is strong enough that it can quickly become a habit, and I have to be exceedingly careful not to keep doing the same thing but with leftist spaces.
Anyway that was just my take away from it. Colored by my own experiences of being a true believer liberal up until 7 years ago or so as well as my experiences of surviving trauma.
Yeah, I'm not sure if I fully agree with the author here on all of it but he definitely raises a lot of good points, and I think his "strategic consequences" section is worth consideration. At the very least, I think the strategy he lays out is more likely to be productive than castigating liberals for being wrong. Not that castigating liberals isn't fun and not that it doesn't have its uses but it's not likely to change the mind of the target, but I've also seen strong arguments made that investing significant effort in attempting to win over what the author refers to as the "bourgeois proletariat" is a fool's errand anyway.