And, as a result, Adam Gopnik (whom I generally like) spouts nonsense in The New Yorker about the impact of the lies of Donald Trump:
Their effect is not merely to comfort his ego but permanently to discomfit our democracy. This is not “I am not a crook”; it is not a claim that there are weapons of mass destruction; it is not “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” These are all ways of parsing reality, or normal fibs told by normal people. Trump’s falsehoods are deliberate attempts to warp the entire field of veracity, so as to defy the simplest parameters of sanity. From now on, whatever happens, no election will be convincing to his followers—not the midterms, not the next Presidential one. Remember the three million.
"There are weapons of mass destruction," is a normal fib? Sending a liar to manipulate Judy Miller into endorsing the existence of those weapons, in story after story, on the front page of the New York Times was a fib? A fib turned the American media against America as credulous stenographers of George W. Bush and active agents in favor of a military adventure bound to play out exactly how it played out? Fuck you, Adam Gopnik.
Regarding Trump, it's Gopnik is describing alternative facts when he claims "Trump's falsehoods are deliberate attempts to warp the entire field of veracity..."
This is the evil genius model of Trump. It's the same model that suggests his rise to fame required genius level media manipulation. As if the media that didn't already treat being a billionaire businessman as proof beyond a reasonable doubt of genius!
Donald Trump is a moron. He has no master plan. He is incapable of the kind of abstract thinking that such a plan requires!
But most importantly, the press hates Donald Trump. Unlike W., they do not all crave the idea that they might sit down and have a beer with him. And the hate certain to continue because it has proved to be good for their bottom line. Pointing out Trump's lies has jacked up CNN's ratings and the NYT's subscriptions. Yes, his election is an emergency because of all the people he can hurt and problems he can cause. But he is not on the verge of destroying our faith in reality. That power resides in the press itself, and as wrong as Gopnik is, his attitude and perspective are strong indications that the press has decided to treat Trump much differently than they treated W, even if they refuse to acknowledge that that treatment is why Iraqi soldiers are dying this very moment in the battle to retake Mosul from ISIS.