The Problem: American democracy and media environment has been crushed lies and disinformation driven by greed for power and money. During the 2023-24 election campaign, an avalanche of lies and disinformation was peddled by an expansive list of players: Media talking heads, news infotainers, podcasters, influencers, pseudo-journalists, think tanks, professional associations (banking, fossil fuel, firearms, tobacco, insurance etc.), PAC’s, lobbyists, and especially politicians. These lies were given a massive public mega-phone through cooperative media outlets. These same media outlets have been rewarded with enormous financial benefits from targeted audience messaging by developing and validating tribal belief structures for their consumers. Then, after the lies and disinformation have been pushed into public domain, the same players often (but not always) work zealously to hide the size, source, and real damage of the lies with sophisticated mis-direction tools. The underlying motivation of all this is power and money: oceans of it. For the powerful and corrupt, the ends always justify the means, and the truth is annoying casualty in the pursuit of profit.
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