The former Public Editor of The New York Times, Margaret Sullivan, has issued a harsh warning to all journalists and members of the press who try to hold President Donald Cobblepot accountable: A Hellscape of Lies and Distorted Reality. The Columbia Journalism Review notes that Trump acts more like a media organization than anything else, one that is heavily influenced by the tactics and tone of Breitbart News, formerly led by his top adviser Steve Bannon, and Fox News, formerly led by his mentor Roger Ailes: Donald Trump is a Media Organzation.

What happens when emotion-driven messaging dominates over policy-making and good governance? Propaganda. I hate overblown comparisons to Nazis, but let’s not forget that Hitler and Goebbels were masters of communication innovation and used the most advanced means at their disposal to spread their poisonous dogma. And that dogma plunged the world into war and caused the deaths of tens of millions of innocent people. They too acted like media organizations. I think a sober analysis of how their propaganda succeeded in what had been one of the world’s most advanced and cultured societies is worth our time and attention, to avoid going down the 21st century version of that road.