Thrives On Confusion

This ought to be a time when democracy leaps forward, an informed citizenry being essential to self-government.  Instead, it's in retreat.  Three decades after the Cold War defeat of a blunt and crude autocracy, a more clever brand takes nourishment from the murk that surrounds us.  The old-school despot embraced censorship.  The modern despot, finding that more difficult, foments mistrust of credible fact, thrives on the confusion loosed by social media and fashions the illusion of legitimacy from supplicants.

-- Karl Vick in Time Magazine, Person of the Year 2018, The Guardians and the War on Truth, 11 December 2018