Implode-o-Meter News - The stench of the Iraq war lingers behind today's preoccupation with fake news

Even as Trump and his surrogates take aim at mainstream outlets, they've established a rapport with the new, rightwing media that mimics the curious symbiosis between Bush and the New York Times' Judith Miller, with Trump relying on his alt-right journalistic enablers to reinforce and amplify his "alternative facts".
"You look at what's happening last night in Sweden," declared Trump in a speech in Florida. "Sweden! Who would believe this? Sweden!"

When puzzled Swedes explained that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, Trump cited the screening of a Fox News documentary about refugees. Meanwhile, far right websites everywhere doubled-down on Trump's claim. Suddenly, Sweden -- a country to which most conservatives had previously paid almost zero attention -- was held up throughout the Trumposphere as a cautionary tale about immigration.

Within the closed ecosystem of the far right media, you could thus hear a weird echo of Greg Sheridan on Iraq: "no serious figure in the debate anywhere doesn't believe Sweden to be a crime-ridden hell hole."

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The stench of the Iraq war lingers behind today's preoccupation with fake news