Liberal: ‘Disinfo’ Focus Is a Dodge

Sam Adler-Bell at New York magazine flags a “pernicious problem with liberals’ fixation on ‘disinformation’”: “It allows them to lie to themselves.” Donald Trump’s 2016 win “suggested the possibility that many millions of Americans were motivated by deep, venomous dissatisfactions with the world” liberal elites “helped create, that our cultural disagreements were profound, not superficial.” And “‘Disinformation’ was the liberal Establishment’s traumatic reaction,” “an answer that evaded the question altogether.” It pretends “large swaths of the country had been duped, brainwashed by nefarious forces.” The answer: give “the best minds . . . new authority to regulate the flow of ‘fake news.’ . . . The rise of Trump called not for new politics but new technocrats.” Sorry: “If faith in our institutions is to be restored,” it won’t be “by stigmatizing doubt.” “After all, faith is not a matter of fact and fiction.”