It was the combination of her voice—a kind of chipper monotone—and the patriotic theme music that gave the lie to the words that were actually coming out of Kayleigh McEnany’s mouth. “Thank you for joining us as we provide the news of the week from Trump Tower here in New York!” she declared on the August 6 episode of Trump TV, against a blue backdrop that looked like a Trump-Pence lawn sign. “Overall, since the president took office, President Trump has created more than one million new jobs, the unemployment rate is at a 16-year low, and consumer confidence is at a 16-year high—all while the Dow Jones continues to break records. President Trump has clearly steered the economy back in the right direction.” Next to her face, a small screen showed various images of Trump speaking to stadiums packed with adoring fans; underneath the images blared the word “Jobs.”

Trump TV was quickly dubbed as “state TV” by many critics, and for good reason. It is run by Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, and is broadcast from Trump Tower. It brands itself as “real news,” a motto that really only makes sense if it stands in contrast to “fake news,” the label that Trump has slapped on virtually every legitimate news organization in this country. And it perpetuates an entirely false narrative that glorifies Donald Trump. Trump, it tells us, has personally created a million jobs and rescued the economy from some ill trajectory. The banal truth is that his administration has been content to ride a tailwind that began many years ago during the administration of Barack Obama.

For now, Trump TV is a small operation, cheaply produced and disseminated through Facebook. But the creation of an official broadcast in which Trump mouthpieces repeat the Trumpian line is just one of several developments that suggest the Trump era has brought conservative media to its evolutionary endpoint: sheer propaganda, stripped even of the veneer of professional journalism that traditional Republican Party organs like Fox News (“Fair and Balanced”) have cultivated since the end of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. It can be seen in the National Rifle Association’s new video channel, where the conservative provocateur Dana Loesch calls on followers to come together in a “clenched fist of truth” to defeat America’s liberal enemies. It can be seen in the growing Sinclair Broadcast Group, whose viewers are breathlessly updated about threats to the homeland through its “Terrorism Alert Desk.” And it can be seen in a constellation of right-wing websites—Breitbart, The Federalist, The Daily Caller, Townhall—that traffic in xenophobia, homophobia, racism, and social Darwinism.

Most influentially, it is evident in the way the White House uses the bully pulpit and social media to make direct appeals to supporters who are not looking for a press release, but for a powerful person to voice their own prejudices and fears, their hatreds and ambitions. All of this has contributed to an environment that bears the hallmarks of a budding propaganda state, in which mass media is used to make nakedly emotional appeals to a perpetually inflamed electorate, and marginalized communities (immigrants, people of color, Muslims, trans people) are targeted as national scapegoats. There is not even a pretense of respecting fact, reason, and argument—there is only a fiction told over and over until it becomes real. The lie is not the goal. Rather, propagandists hope to create a world where lies no longer matter.

And conservative propaganda has not been confined to the right-wing echo chamber. McEnany rose to prominence as a contributor to CNN. And a day after her Trump TV debut, she announced a new job, as the spokesperson for the Republican National Committee.