Parker Molloy has a great new essay on Trump’s repeated subversion of reality, seen recently in his claim that Ronald Reagan loved tariffs when in fact he hated them as accurately portrayed in this Canadian ad with unadulterated clips of him speaking. This reminded me of the often-quoted Hannah Arendt, who I really need to read much more of.
“If the public loses faith in what they hear and see and truth becomes a matter of opinion, then power flows to those whose opinions are most prominent — empowering authorities along the way.”
– The Liar’s Dividend: Trump, AI, and the Death of Shared Reality by Parker Molloy, Oct 28, 2025
“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. … The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”
– The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, 1951