And then the debate would proceed. Line up the nattering heads for the Sunday shows. Release the trolls!

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Some outside the White House would offer evidence that the sun had in fact set, but others would point up to the sky and simply smirk at the naysayers. The media would present both sides.

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When we have entered this world, and we have, Trump knows he can’t lose. Facts, alternative facts — who’s to say which is which? Trump strides proudly along the parade route with the Boy Scouts, in his emperor’s new clothes, and one of the Scouts exclaims, “But he’s naked!” Then a hush falls over the crowd, and Trump leads the rest of the Scouts into booing former president Barack Obama.

As long as there is a large contingent of people willing to back Trump up on whatever he says, he can be jaybird-naked and it doesn’t matter. The truth has ceased to exist, at least for public discussion purposes. The people who play this game know who they are, except, no, I’m not sure they actually do. They have become so adept at picking up and parroting the company line that I’m not sure they really notice anymore.

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The recent shake-up in the Trump communications staff is illustrative. It is not about getting the facts out. It is about better managing the storyline. Here’s a perfect example. Anthony Scaramucci used to be for climate science, until he was against it. See how effortless that was? The facts really don’t matter. What matters is the story they put out. And facts that get out by accident? Why, those are the leaks that Scaramucci has been brought in to ruthlessly stop.

Meanwhile, on the ground, or rather the ground that was there before being submerged under the rising sea levels, the actual facts continue, unheeded.

And what do we do now in a world where the facts as we argue them stop bearing a meaningful relation to the facts on the ground?