At some point, however, something broke. Conservative media stopped being a place that served as a church library for ideas and experts on the right. Instead, it became about beating the left, rallying around individual politicians, tickling the ears of the right-leaning mob.

Today, we face a global pandemic and the right is more likely to believe a random website with fraudulent information than a presidential advisor who has spent forty years in his field. The right would rather believe the equivalent of a flat-earther than the astronaut who touched the surface of the moon.

That’s the thing that drives me crazy. There actually are people who there who claim expert status and believe the world is flat. There are others who claim expert status and argue we never landed on the moon. The right used to have the capacity to discern that these are not actually credible people. Now, instead of embracing reality and expertise, much of the right would rather embrace contrarianism and conspiracy even if it means abandoning reality.