on Trumpers, anti-Trumpers, January 6th, and a self-emasculated media

Rebecca Panovka rings true for me in her Harpers critique of Trump & anti-Trumpers. Thoughts here (from Trumpers, anti-Trumpers, anti-anti-Trumpers and others of us "in the middle"):

"[Trump] invented facts as he needed them, flooding the field with misinformation. He tossed off a lie, and by the time the media had scrambled to fact-check him, he had already moved on to the next one. For the most part, his supporters were undeterred when his lies were unveiled, because they understood he was saying whatever was advantageous, not speaking as an absolute authority...He antagonized the press but never made moves to dismantle it. Even when he contested the 2020 election result, he made his case through lies and lawyers rather than recruiting the kind of organized military force that might have executed a bona fide coup. On January 6, there was no serviceable plan because Trump never made the defining totalitarian effort to bend reality to his fictional world. His lies never progressed beyond the singular goal of saving face."

"Trump’s loudest critics spent his time in office wringing their hands over 'alternative facts,' worshipping fact-checkers, and fetishizing factual truth—declaiming Trump as an exception and yearning for a return to normal. But amid the criticism, they did little to examine the status of truth under previous administrations. Trump was not the first liar in the Oval Office, and unlike some of his predecessors, he was fiercely challenged by an adversarial press and an opposition party keen to decry his every statement. Rather than a calculating liar with an all-embracing plan, Trump was an opportunist able to exploit a lack of public trust in the institutions charged with disseminating facts. The journalists who nitpicked his statements managed only to preach to the proverbial choir, while his most ardent supporters [were] convinced that the media was aligned with the 'deep state.' The press, after all, had already proved itself unequipped to dismantle the fictional reality constructed by the architects of American empire."