By Matthew Vadum -- BombThrowers——Bio and Archives--July 4, 2017
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Every once in a while somebody at the vastly overrated left-wing Atlantic magazine stumbles across the truth.
Such is the case with a fascinating piece by McKay Coppins titled “How the Left Lost Its Mind,” subtitled “Polemicists, conspiracists, and outright fabulists are feeding an alternative media landscape—where the implausibility of a claim is no bar to its acceptance.”
Coppins predictably bashes Republicans as kooks, claiming that “the denizens of the fever swamp” have taken over the GOP, but then he wonders if “the same thing” could happen on the Left:It’s a prospect that deserves more serious attention and debate than it’s gotten this year. The Trump era has given rise to a vast alternative left-wing media infrastructure that operates largely out of the view of casual news consumers, but commands a massive audience and growing influence in liberal America. There are polemical podcasters and partisan click farms; wild-eyed conspiracists and cynical fabulists. Some traffic heavily in rumor and wage campaigns of misinformation; others are merely aggregators and commentators who have carved out a corner of the web for themselves. But taken together, they form a media universe where partisan hysteria is too easily stoked, and fake news can travel at the speed of light.News flash: It has already happened. The kooks have dominated the Left for quite a while now.
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Matthew Vadum, matthewvadum.blogspot.com, is an investigative reporter.
His new book Subversion Inc. can be bought at Amazon.com (US), Amazon.ca (Canada)
Visit the Subversion Inc. Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter.