Fox fell into the hole it helped dig The right wing, Fox News included, trained their audience to trust no one. Except them. It was the culmination of a decades-long effort by the right to discredit anyone not from their tribe and to dissolve external reality. Government, academia, science, and the media are the enemy. Cannot be trusted. Tens of millions of Americans, says MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, were trained to believe no one outside the conservative bubble. Until someone more demagogic than themselves came along. That someone was Donald Trump. The conservative base trusted him more. The right had killed off any other source of reality-checking authority except the purveyors of blustery nonsense. Trust (or “anonymous trust“) has been destroyed. See Hayes’ monologue from last night: Some time back, I suggested that the trend began with the Reformation: Say what you will about the excesses of Rome and the papacy (and not to ignore Constantinople), prior to the Reformation there was some central authority to define Christianity for much of the West, to set standards and protocols, if you will. The Reformation may have decentralized the faith and brought it closer to the people, but it also meant by the late 20th century that any American huckster with a flashy suit, an expensive coif, a sonorous voice, and a black, Morocco-bound, gilt-edged, King James red-letter edition could define Christianity pretty much any damned way he pleased. And did. Who was to say he was wrong? That do-it-yourself spirit extends as…