Post-Truth Politics: Conspiracy Media and the Specter of “Fake News”

After the midterm elections in 2014, as the Obama administration’s second term wound down, the electoral calendar began looking ahead to the next election. Over the next two years one of the more remarkable presidential races in US history began to unfold, culminating on election night in November 2016 when something like a bomb went off in the American political system. Regardless of how one voted or which of the two major candidates one supported (if either), few anticipated that Donald Trump would win.¹ As the professional political class, the news media, and the general public all scrambled to understand