The latest federal case against Donald Trump is putting a spotlight on the role of false and baseless claims in his presidency. The indictment alleges that the former president and his co-conspirators used lies for the criminal purpose of overturning the 2020 election. For some scholars of history, its forensic look at how speech underpinned an alleged conspiracy to illegally retain power helps to situate Trump into larger historical patterns.
Either way, it doesn’t really matter where he came from, that’s functionally irrelevant. Managing to gain popularity is the real problem, and it’s representative of something worse.
You know how reality tv is total garbage, but its also still kinda popular? They keep making more because we keep watching it. Or clickbait headlines. They produce them because they work.
It doesn’t matter where these things come from. What matters is how they succeed, and what we can understand about that. That way we can better combat them.
You’re, of course, right.