Impeachment and the State of the Union: How Trump Attacks the System with Disinformation – Mother Jones:

It’s hard to know how the political-media world will process the flood of disinformation that will hit between now and November. (Facebook has said it generally won’t remove false content posted by political campaigns.) Disinformation is a powerful weapon—and it’s tough to figure out how to dilute or thwart it. There’s an old line that has falsely been attributed to Mark Twain: “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” This observation was made long before the age of the Internet and social media. At no time in human history has it been easier to bombard the public with false data and bogus information. And in an era of tribalized politics and fractured media, the penalties for doing so seem diminished. US society—and the whole world—faces a profound challenge in this regard, as scoundrels, autocrats, and others seek to gain or hold power through the effective utilization of disinformation. Trump is a one-man stress test for American democracy. With the impeachment trial, he has shown that before a jury dominated by members of his own party he can escape accountability by drum-beating fictions and by smothering truth with deception. The coming nine months will tell whether Trump’s fabrications and propaganda can defeat reality when it’s the voters who are judging.