Trump and the End of Truth; New York Times, 7/25/16

Roger Cohen, New York Times; Trump and the End of Truth:

"Facts are now a quaint hangover from a time of rational discourse, little annoyances easily upended. Volume trumps reality, as Roger Ailes understood at Fox News, before a downfall that coincided with the apotheosis of his post-factual world.

A red-faced bully, adept in the choreography of collective hysteria, arises. He promises that he alone can set things right. He is the voice. He stands against a great tide of menace, from ISIS to immigrants, and only he understands the vast dimensions of the danger.

We have been here before. Fascism was a backlash against dysfunctional democracies. It invited belief in the leadership of the strongman against enemies within and without. Its currency was untruth and its culmination bloody unreason. It was decried and dismissed by those it would devour.

It is inevitable, given what he represents, that Trump looks to Putin. Orwell again: “Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.”"