Ask Me Anything (AMA) #4
An AMA for full subscribers to the Proof newsletter.
This AMA is a “free-for-all,” meaning you can ask any question, on any subject, and I will answer it as honestly as I can.
Use the comment section below to submit your questions. I’ll get to as many questions as I can before my fingers give out from typing—and then I’ll let everyone here know in an update to this post when that happens.
UPDATE (11:00 PM ET): Okay, so I answered as many questions as I could! See below, in the comments, for the answers. Thanks to all for participating!
Jared Kushner seemed central and omnipresent and now I hear little mention of him. Any info on what he’s up to and how he fits into Trump et al’s future?
Love the Proof substack -- thank you! About a year ago I went to hear Ira Glass do his live show for This American Life. During the Q&A he mentioned that in his opinion mainstream media still has not figured out how to deal with constant, ongoing, bad-faith misinformation and disinformation. In Ira's view, the propagandists see it as a "war" and proceed accordingly, whereas mainstream media is still stuck in a 2010s mode and simply not equipped to handle the toxic spew. Given Brandolini's Law, the nihilism of the "flood the zone" strategy, the false equivalence of "both sides-ism," etc. have you found any GOOD examples of media (or individuals) responding effectively to bad-faith disinformation? Is there any way for folks to dismiss statements out of hand as decoys or traps (or just tripe) and refuse to engage? So often it feels like merely responding to the lies and misinformation is a mistake, along the lines of the classic "So have you stopped beating your wife yet?" Is there a metamodern response to disinformation as a mainline political strategy?