A recent New Yorker article by George Prochnik quoted the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig<br />on Hitler’s savage reaction: “At one blow all of justice in Germany was smashed.”<br />From a president who loathes the press, who insults the judiciary, who has no time for American ideals of liberty or democracy,<br />and whose predilection for violence is evident, what would be the reaction to a Reichstag fire in American guise — say a major act of terrorism<br />We’ve had fake news accounts of how Hillary Clinton paid $62 million to Beyoncé<br />and Jay Z to perform in Cleveland, and how Khizr Khan, the father of the Muslim American officer killed in Iraq, was an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood.<br />But in this time of President Trump’s almost daily “fake news” accusations against ,<br />and of his counselor Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts,” and of untruths seeping like a plague from the highest office in the land, there’s increasing talk of “real” or “fact-based” journalism.<br />I’ve never seen anything like it.”<br />We’ve never seen anything like it because when hundreds of millions of Americans are<br />connected, anyone, clueless or not, can disseminate what they like with a click.<br />Hordes of journalists scurry to disprove “X.” He moves on, never to mention it again, or claims<br />that he did not say it, or insists that what he really said was “Y.”<br />People begin to wonder: Am I imagining this?<br />In February 1933, a few weeks after Hitler became chancellor, fire engulfed the parliament in Berlin — an act of arson whose origin is still unclear.
