As someone whose job includes tracking misleading content, rumors, and myths, people often ask me "what do you recommend to deal with dis/misinformation?"

It's not an easy question, but I always start with this:

The majority of Americans, regardless of our ideology or political belief, are feeling the daily impacts of psychological warfare.

Russ Vought, who is key figure in the Trump regime, author of the extreme Project 2025 agenda, and a self-described Christian nationalist, defines it like this:

We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.

We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.

But Trump's lead people – the richest White House cabinet ever with 8 billionaires and 12+ millionaires – aren't reserving that trauma just for the EPA, over the last several weeks Trump/Musk & Co. have fired, threatened, and de-funded:

- Employees running the VA Crisis Hotline, a key lifeline for former service members struggling with PTSD, many who are veterans themselves

- Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) staff responsible for monitoring airplane safety and planning/mapping routes