Claiming that the second most powerful man in the world should be granted a “safe space” in public turned the concept precisely on its head. Trump performed the same trick on the phrase “witch hunt,” which he repeatedly claimed was being carried out by Democrats to avenge their electoral loss by launching the Russia investigation. Witch hunts cannot actually be carried out by losers, big or small: the agent of a witch hunt must have power. Trump seized and flipped the term “fake news” in much the same way. Until roughly late fall 2016, “fake news” referred to false stories proffered by the
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