For a similar reason, the centre has been battered and bewildered in the domain of meaning. How does it come to be, that facts and reason are no match for sheer confidence? For falsehoods expressed with the salesman-like bark of a commodities trader, or a real estate agent? Indeed, how have the terms of 'facts' and 'reason' become the idiom of the alt right, the brand name for their ideology, their mode of rightist 'common sense'? Why are they so impervious to fact-checks? Hannah Arendt tells us that the followers of far-right leaders actually don't mind being lied to, because they expect politicians to cheat. They just want their guys to lie more effectively. They also want to be in on it, but even if they discover they've been lied to, they will just pretend to have known all along, and it will only renew their admiration for the tactical savvy of their cheating, lying leaders. Not to mention their contempt for the stupid, conned masses. Above all, to recall Karl Rove's point, beliefs create realities, they don't reflect them. "The true goal of totalitarian propaganda," Arendt says, "is not persuasion but organisation". It orchestrates and puts into motion the believers, whether they believe or not.

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