Christopher Preble — Americans Aren't Buying What Fact Checkers Are Selling

So, in our current state, who is the arbiter of actual truth from mere speculation? What institution or person can help us sort out what is true or false? Answer, no one. So everyone merely asserts, and people believe who and what they want to believe. Blog A’s facts are just as good as Blog B’s. Thus the phenomenon of, yes, fake news.

Indeed, increasingly it seems that a fact is only believed as such if it advances one’s preconceived notions (as noted by Stephen Schwartz). This is not confined merely to Donald Trump supporters, but the most notorious cases of beliefs widely disconnect from reality seem to be.

This is what happens when at elite becomes outrageously corrupt and untrustworthy, the society becomes dysfunctional as trust breaks down generally.

Historically, the failure of the state internally or defeat externally is not far away.  It's not by accident that this post in in The National Interest, a publication on international relations, strategy and defense.

The National Interest
Americans Aren't Buying What Fact Checkers Are Selling
Christopher Preble | vice president for defense and foreign-policy studies at the Cato Institute