Herein Rachel Maddow explains how we got to a place where lies and rumors are treated as fact in the self-confirming world of the well-funded right-wing media.

It’s not just the fringe accepting bullshit like “Muslims are exempt from Obamacare” or “Obama is smuggling muslims into the country” or “the Presidential trip to Asia costs $200 million a day.” Actual elected officials are encouraging and spreading these things that are easily disprovable, and that they know to be incorrect, because it’s politically useful. Facts have no place on the right.