The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump

the psychological tendency of people to accept the first information received on a topic (and, as the Rand report observes, then “favor this information when faced with conflicting messages”).

anything could mean anything; an author’s intent did not matter, could not in fact be discerned; there was no such thing as an obvious or commonsense reading, because everything had an infinitude of meanings. In short, there was no such thing as truth.

More ironic still is the populist Right’s appropriation of postmodernist arguments and its embrace of the philosophical repudiation of objectivity—schools of thought affiliated for decades with the Left

“Atmospheric CO2 is the same whether the scientist measuring it is a Somali woman or an Argentine man.” But such postmodernist arguments would clear the way for today’s anti-vaxxers and global warming deniers, who refuse to accept the consensus opinion of the overwhelming majority of scientists.

All narratives are contingent, Surkov suggests, and all politicians are liars; therefore, the alternative facts put out by the Kremlin (and by Donald Trump) are just as valid as anyone else’s.

any symmetrical system whatsoever which gave the appearance of order—dialectical materialism, anti-Semitism, Nazism—was enough to fascinate men.

tends to overwhelm and numb people while simultaneously defining deviancy down and normalizing the unacceptable. Outrage gives way to outrage fatigue, which gives way to the sort of cynicism and weariness that empowers those disseminating the lies.

Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witnesses to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs.”

the Nazis’ obsession with numbers and superlatives; everything had