ABSTRACT
Media ecologies of the Trump presidency played a key role in the Capitol Riots. Participants carried with them impressions of a democracy in chaos drawn from social media echo chambers. Beneath their outrage was a complex tangle of nostalgia, fear of change, loss, and a desire to shape the future. Informed by the rise of right-wing media, white supremacy, and social media algorithmic manipulation, this epistemological quicksand enveloped many participants. Post-truth, alternative facts, minsinformation, disinformation, and fake news are not just rhetorical ruses of the Trump presidency, however, they are part of the cultural conditions and culture wars of a post-literate epoch in which the epistemic conditions upon which truth is negotiated have changed profoundly. Media untruths now propagate actions in the material world. The Capitol riots instantiate how this may have devastating consequences not just for individual participants but also for the viability of American democracy.
