Make no mistake: the process is now indeed inexorable. In this digital age of “leaks,” if the truth is that Trump colluded with the Kremlin, it is hard to imagine that it will not eventually out. If the truth is that the political establishment and the deep state, aided and abetted by a zealous media, colluded against Trump, it is hard to imagine it will not eventually out, if it has not already.

But the truth does not always win wars, be they about rhetoric or geography. Geographic wars are won by means of physical maneuver and violence. Rhetorical wars are won by means of strategic communication and persuasion. And what is at stake is nothing less than the means of communication and therefore persuasion in America.

There is a tightly controlled communications technology that has profoundly and purposefully influenced and manipulated American society, behavior, cultural self-understanding, and politics without most people realizing its deeper effects for decades: it’s called television. The medium, as Marshall McLuhan taught us, is the message: ultimately, digital rhetoric is never going to be able to be controlled the same way elite society was able to control discourse and cultural self-understanding in the era of TV. Until figures like Mark Zuckerberg can find the courage to tell the establishment to go to hell, however, it will seek to find a way.