“Even before he was a Republican presidential candidate, Trump’s modern political career kicked off with unfounded, and repeatedly disproved, rumors about Barack Obama’s birth certificate.”
“It continued when he became president-elect, as Trump fixated on the size of his inauguration crowd, arguing against all evidence that it was larger than the record crowd that showed up in 2008 to see President Obama sworn in.”
“Now, as president, he has claimed that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote only because of several million illegal voters, none of whom the White House has been able to identify.”
“In theory, the president of the United States incorporates the exclusive intelligence to which he has access into existing theories about the world, and uses it to craft policy. In practice, however, Trump appears to execute this sequence in reverse. He begins with a worldview in which all unhappy news is a plot against him, seeks out cable-news chyrons and headlines that animate his theory, and ignores any information to the contrary, even from his own intelligence agencies.”
“This is a conspiracy-theory feedback loop, in which actors may see downstream value in promoting a story without evidence, not only because they think it will please conservative audiences, but also because it may eventually prompt an invaluable Trump endorsement. If you thought the incentives for “click bait” headlines were bad, imagine the incentives for “Trumpbait” news.”
“Americans are still learning what it means to have a president who is essentially a one-man media conglomerate, who processes the world through ratings and media representations of strength, and whose ultimate political goal sometimes seems to be avoiding looking like a fool, even when it means distributing ideas so unfounded that his own White House won’t back them up.”
“propaganda in the age of Trump can self-assemble from the bottom-up.”
“There’s no need to build 21st century Pravda; left unaided, attention-driven economics and status-seeking individuals who’d get a kick out of seeing the president tweet their essay will produce stories at least as outrageous as what it might have run.”