https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2023/oct/14/peter-dutton-is-australias-figurehead-of-fear-and-fake-news-like-trump-but-without-charisma
This opposition leader makes things up regularly, sometimes several times a day, with growing confidence. He’s fully intent on shaping his own reality, and why wouldn’t he be? Dutton’s accusations and inventions are amplified much more often than they are factchecked, parsed or decoded, because there is so much bollocking and barracking in the public square, people can’t see the bullshit.That’s the point. That’s the strategy.
Authoritarian populists like Dutton set the media truth-seeking tests we cannot afford to fail. And yet we fail them. Time after time. Much of the mainstream media doesn’t seem that engaged with the measurable reality that the alternative prime minister of Australia has set his vocational GPS to post-truth and is picking up speed. I’m not sure why. That development seems pretty important from where I sit.
