In his new, much-talked-about Atlantic essay, George Packer contends that journalists “will have a special challenge” in the era of President-elect Donald Trump. “We’re living,” he writes, “in a world where facts instantly perish upon contact with human minds.”

For those unfamiliar with Packer’s work, he’s a celebrated author of numerous books, including one that purports to tell the story of America’s “unwinding.” Packer, a cultural anthropologist and psychiatrist, wraps the usual milquetoast conventional leftist wisdom in the kind of melodramatic prose that impresses well-heeled progressives.