I don’t have the reach I did at the other place, so I hope you’ll help me share this, if you feel it’s important.

I also owe a huge thanks to @dannagal.bsky.social @katestarbird.bsky.social @ajbauer.bsky.social @mattgertz.bsky.social @mikemadrid.bsky.social @ninajankowicz.com @cwarzel.bsky.social

The result is a four-part podcast miniseries, Landslide: Engines of Outrage. It looks at how we got here, the characteristics of the right-wing bubble, and what — if anything — can bring us back to a shared, fact-based reality.

How did we get here, and what can be done? For months, I’ve interviewed psychologists, historians, misinformation researchers — many the subject of backlash and conspiracy theories for their work.

In this alt reality, government agencies are “fraudulent,” federal workers are “partisan hacks,” vaccines “don’t work,” climate change is “fake,” and the merits of any political action depend on who performs it.

In this ecosystem, there is no weighing or presenting of different sides of an argument. There’s no weighing of info about what’s lost from cuts to USAID, or CDC, or NOAA. Conspiracy theories and misinfo travel as fact.

A massive, alternate media ecosystem is propping up all of these actions. It delivers a distorted version of reality, justifying and championing everything we’re seeing.

It is hard to overstate its effect.

Glad you are here!