Must-read opinion by Anne Applebaum in today’s WAPO.
Rather than answering her question, the Trump-Putin bots criticize her for asking the question: “Who, in fact, is incapable of comparing fact A to fact B?”
Tech-savvy youngsters see right through it. Why can’t 30% of Trump voters?
The answer: As “authoritarian personality” types, they seek to disparage the “out-group” while they themselves submit to the greatest humiliation, that is, they surrender their own civic personhood to the dominator. They don’t want to know the truth. (Arendt, Fromm, Horkheimer)
Pope Francis recently applied a less polite characterization: they prefer the taste of the lowest elements.