Apocalyptic Partisanship

With little more than a week until election day, fascists and authoritarians are working feverishly to end American democracy. If we don’t “do democracy,” Dr. Jennifer Mercieca warns, they might succeed.

How do we fact check in an ocean of lies? In this episode Rick is joined by Bill Adair, the founder of PolitiFact and a professor at Duke University, to discuss the growing epidemic of political lying, especially within the Republican Party. They explore the history of political dishonesty, the role of conservative media in amplifying misinformation, and the challenges of fact-checking in an era dominated by figures like Donald Trump. The conversation highlights the danger that widespread deception poses to democracy and addresses the role of new technologies, like deepfakes, in further distorting truth in political discourse. Bill's book, Beyond the Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our Democracy, available now.

Mark Jacob writes: "Journalism isn’t easy, but it’s damn important, and more people in the news industry need to start doing it before they wake up one day and realize that journalism has become illegal."

Amee Vanderpool writes, "An unsealed DOJ indictment alleges that Russian-backed operations used US influencers to help drive internet traffic to "cybersquatted" and other false propaganda domains."

Mark Jacob writes, "Instead of carping about TikTok, news outlets need to fix themselves".