The Trouble with Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time

Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media, examines disinformation during the Trump era and explores potential responses. Drawing on her experience covering current events, Gladstone discusses what she terms our "trouble with reality"—the recognition that reality has always been subjective, shaped by bubbles and stereotypes, and therefore more fragile than commonly assumed. Gladstone argues that the Trump administration weaponized this vulnerability. For them, she contends, lying itself became the strategy: the more blatant the falsehood, the easier it becomes to distort reality and consolidate power. She analyzes this authoritarian approach using insights from Hannah Arendt, Walter Lippmann, Philip K. Dick, and Jonathan Swift, and identifies five types of Trump tweets designed to undermine shared notions of truth. Gladstone also offers a counterpoint, noting that history provides both a treatment for moral panic and evidence of eventual reckoning. The book explains why many failed to anticipate these developments and outlines paths toward recovering belief in shared reality.