All fair points. The change, as I see it, is the speed at which information flows. The old saying about how a lie can circle the world before the truth gets its

All fair points. The change, as I see it, is the speed at which information flows. The old saying about how a lie can circle the world before the truth gets its trousers on applies. Only now, the lie can travel at the speed of light. Narratives have a very strong early-mover bias. The OPs point about things starting to crack in the Obama years rings true. For all of his positive points, there is nothing in Obama's resume that suggests he was qualified to be President. He was the first President to be memed into office. The press loved to talk about how adept the campaign was in utilizing the Internet to mobilize and motivate supporters. Everybody took notice, and now the narrative battle happens online, at Internet speeds. This is a terrible, terrible idea. Unless you're some kind of otherworldly genius, taking in all of the input and coming to a rational opinion weighing all the pros and cons is impossible. So, like a black-box AI algorithm, people come up with opinions based on odd things like who has a more insulting neologism for their opponent, or whatever. The "collective amnesia" you mention also occurs at Internet speeds. What was major news on Tuesday is fishwrap by Thursday, replaced with something else. There's no value in revisiting it, so whatever narrative gets entrenched is it. I don't think there's a solution for any of this, short of a CME wiping out everything more technological than a shovel.