Technology offers the illusion of companionship without the demands of intimacy, and communication without emotional risk, while actually making peop… - Michiko Kakutani

The most appalling racist, sexist, and perversely cruel remarks are served up on social media, often with a wink or a sneer, and when called out, practitioners frequently respond that they were simply joking — much the way that White House aides say Trump is simply joking or misunderstood when he makes offensive remarks. At a November 2016 alt-right conference, the white supremacist Richard Spencer ended his speech, shouting, “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!” When asked about the Nazi salutes that greeted his exclamation, Spencer replied that they were “clearly done in a spirit of irony and exuberance.

This is not to draw a direct analogy [to] the overwhelming horrors of the World War II era but to look at some of the conditions and attitudes... that make a people susceptible to demagoguery and political manipulation, and nations easy prey for would-be autocrats. To examine how a disregard for facts, the displacement of reason by emotion, and the corrosion of language are diminishing the very value of truth, and what that means for America and the world.

Once he has left office, the damage he has done to American institutions and the country’s foreign policy will take years to repair.