On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks discussed the QAnon members showing up at Trump rallies and stated that there aren’t people who can quash conspiracy theories anymore and “a lot of us mainstream journalists have become delegitimized in the eyes of a lot of Trump supporters, sometimes for our own fault. … But then the fans have been — the fires have been fanned by Trump himself.”

Brooks said, “I used to say, we tried to bring democracy to the Middle East, and we ended up Middle Easternizing our democracy. Because we now have become a realm of suspicion and conspiracy theories.”

He continued that conspiracy theories “come and go. The question is, is there a William F. Buckley, is there a Ronald Reagan, is there a Democratic establishment that can quash them? And now, it’s quite the opposite.”

Brooks concluded, “And so, what’s happened is, the mainstream — a lot of us mainstream journalists have become delegitimized in the eyes of a lot of Trump supporters, sometimes for our own fault. We — if you — it turns out, if you don’t hire from large segments of American society, you become detached from them, and they write you off. And a lot of that’s happened. But then the fans have been — the fires have been fanned by Trump himself. And, basically, what seems to be happening is a complete inversion of where information comes from. And the — those of us in the mainstream media who used to provide information are now discounted in large sections. And this new thing has arisen.”

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