President Donald Trump and his Republican defenders in Congress have followed his lead in declaring war on observed reality. Critical reports are “fake news,” journalists reporting the facts are “enemies of the people,” a phrase of Vladimir Lenin’s, debunked conspiracy theories are repeated, and public servants testifying under oath about documented events are dismissed as Never Trumpers.
Unable to change the facts, Trump and his supporters instead try to shift the debate into an alternate universe where the truth is whatever they say it is today. Trump repeats the same lies over and over, and it’s hard to say which is more troubling — that his followers don’t realize that they are lies or that they don’t care. Globalization and the internet may have made the world smaller, but now we’re experiencing a counterattack, the regionalization of truth.
The internet was supposed to shine the light of truth into every corner of the world, breaking the authoritarians’ monopoly on information. But it has also become a light-speed delivery system of lies and propaganda. The web has been chopped into pieces. Like a shattered mirror, each fragment reflects a different distorted image instead of a single reality.
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