“‘They are not compatible with our culture,’ she said. ‘They hate us. They don’t want to be Americans. They don’t want to assimilate. What do you need to see? What more proof do you need?’ This was a highly unusual meeting, but Brown wasn’t exactly surprised. Several months earlier, when the anti-refugee activists began to organize, he started reading up to try to better understand their views. He picked up a book by Ann Coulter and began to follow the anti-refugee blogs. At the meeting, he felt as if he were hearing all that he had read being repeated aloud by his neighbors.” In the NYT Mag, Caitlin Dickerson explains how “exaggerated reports of a juvenile sex crime brought a media maelstrom to Twin Falls — one the Idaho city still hasn’t recovered from.” Fake news isn’t just happening at the national level. And neither are the pre-existing divisions it foments. This is how fake news turned a small town upside down. (A story for our times, even including some participation by the Russians…) It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness. It all depended on which news you got…