In addition to amplifying polarization, the report concluded, social media tends to undermine trust in institutions and makes it more difficult to ha… - Michiko Kakutani

I hold it, therefore, certain,” Jefferson went on, “that to open the doors of truth, and to fortify the habit of testing everything by reason, are the most effectual manacles we can rivet on the hands of our successors to prevent their manacling the people with their own consent.

With this embrace of subjectivity came the diminution of objective truth: the celebration of opinion over knowledge, feelings over facts — a development that both reflected and helped foster the rise of Trump.

If citizens do not bother to gain basic literacy in the issues that affect their lives,” Nichols wrote, “they abdicate control over those issues whether they like it or not. And when voters lose control of these important decisions, they risk the hijacking of their democracy by ignorant demagogues, or the more quiet and gradual decay of their democratic institutions into authoritarian technocracy.