The president-elect was repeating something that he’d said for months, and that appears to reflect his perception of reality: News outlets are his adversaries, and the only way to win against them is to use a bigger megaphone. Mr. Trump’s war with the news media is fundamentally different from the tension between most other American politicians and journalists. Mr. Trump (much like Mr. Putin) thrives on cacophony, in an environment of ever-shifting realities that makes other people feel disoriented and helpless.
In the past, Mr. Trump’s fights with the news media have generally concerned journalists’ factual reporting that has conflicted with the fog that surrounds Mr. Trump’s view of reality. Mr. Trump, in turn, has sought to drown out facts with denials and attacks. But this time was different: A reporter was asking him to speculate about something that the reporter himself seemed to think was probably false. Mr. Trump’s version of reality got a boost: There was no such thing as truth, only a battle of opinions proffered by different actors, each of whom strives to be loudest. [...]
I have been here before. As Mr. Putin consolidated power in Russia, it became more and more difficult for journalists to report facts. We lost access to many institutions, while others became progressively less trustworthy. With the president often lying or obfuscating and with all of the government brought under the control of the executive branch, we could no longer look to the courts, the police or other state institutions to learn or corroborate facts — if we could get anyone to talk to us or give us documents at all. Reality became squishy.
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