“A web of illusion had consequences in real life on Wednesday and will continue to have consequences in real life,” said CNN’s correspondent head of media, Brian Stelter, on Sunday “Reliable sources”.
A large number of Trump’s followers have clung to the misinformation provided by the president, right-wing media and social media platforms. This led some to believe the most extreme creed imaginable: that Trump was “an agent of God”, reported Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who spoke to Trump supporters before the January 6 siege of the Capitol.
“A lot of people I talked to were completely disconnected from observable reality,” Goldberg told Stelter on Sunday.
This is just the tip of the delusional iceberg that created a flood of chaos in Washington last week.
Far-right Trump supporters often live in alternative information ecosystems, sharing and recycling false information from unreliable sources, from QAnon conspiracy theories to conversations around “Stop the Steal” – the false belief that Trump won the election 2020. Many of these ill-informed people are discussing new actions based on these lies.
Trump’s false allegations of electoral fraud, perpetuated by hundreds of Republican politicians and the right-wing media machine, prepared rioters with lies and conspiracy theories. This helped fuel the web of illusion that led to the Capitol riots last week, said Stelter. Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Maria Bartiromo and many others have allowed, encouraged and spread this misinformation, noted Oliver Darcy of CNN Business.
Traditional media are struggling to find words to cover chaos.
“Part of the reason for [Trump has] it went on and on because the unthinkable to come true is actually very difficult to cover, “said Susan Glasser, editor of the New Yorker team at Stelter.” The novelty of this movement – internally – really put us at a disadvantage. We almost have to be like foreign correspondents in our own Capitol at a certain point. “