Trumps fake-news presidency

ABuzzFeed analysis this week concluded that fake news stories about the election generated more engagement on Facebook than the top election stories from 19 major news outlets — combined.

And that’s not the half of it.

Not only is fake news getting more attention than actual news, but also the leading purveyor of fake news in the United States is now the president-elect.

For 17 months, Donald Trump treated the nation to a series of outlandish promises. He’ll eliminate the $19 trillion federal debt in eight years. He’ll balance the budget without cutting Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements. He’ll bring back lost coal jobs. He’ll make Mexico pay for a border wall. He’ll deport 12 million illegal immigrants while growing the economy by at least 6 percent.

Now Trump is the president-elect, and it’s time to deliver on the impossible. No wonder his transition is racked with chaos and infighting. Scripture tells us you can’t serve both God and mammon. Yet Trump proposes to be served by both Reince Priebus and Stephen K. Bannon — a chief of staff who is a paragon of the establishment and a top adviser who is a leading voice for white supremacists. The array of impossible promises and false claims has all the appearances of a Ponzi scheme, with the $18 trillion U.S. economy in the balance. Bernie Madoff’s scheme lost only $50 billion.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-fake-news-presidency/2016/11/18/72cc7b14-ad96-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html?utm_term=.8d906b6739d7&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1#comments