One thing I think many people on the left don’t really understand is the extent to which a huge swathe of this country lives in an utterly different reality.

It’s my job to spend a lot of time monitoring communities pushing conspiracy theories. Their reach is extraordinary 1/

2/ Much of the country lives in a world where facts, reported by mainstream news orgs and agreed upon by most of the power, are accepted as truth.

We find it hard to understand those who don’t accept those facts, and dismiss them as dumb, or deluded

3/ What many of us don’t fully appreciate is that there exists a fully functioning and (to many) utterly convincing world of alternative facts, supported by its own “news” ecosystem and, ultimately, given new life every day by the President of the United States

4/ The people who live inside this world look at the rest of us with pity, convinced that we’ve been suckered in by conspiracy theorists and liars.

In that world, it’s those of us who live in reality who are the *real* conspiracy theorists.

*We’ve been duped. *We’re dumb.

5/ This isn’t news to many who watch this world closely, but please consider next time you dismiss someone as a fool, that their ideas are being propped up by a huge industry of liars, led by The Alex Jones’s, Roger Stone’s and Donald Trump’s of the world.

6/ We’ve come awfully close to that alternative reality usurping our country’s democracy.

I wonder whether, next time, it will survive.

Creating a new paradigm, in which people can properly ascertain fact from lies, is absolutely essential for that survival.

7/ It’s not enough, especially for those in the media, to scoff and sneer at this alternative world.
We need solutions.
We need education.
And hard work.

Otherwise facts won’t win.