THE election of Barack Obama as president of the United States of America felt as if a new wave of optimism and hope would change our politics forever. The first black incumbent of the White House seemed to signal an important defeat for the forces of racism and hate.

A step on the road to equality and understanding that could be built on during the years ahead. Sixteen years later, we seem to be further away from that goal than ever, overwhelmed by an unstoppable tide of lies and misinformation.

Racism has been steadily injected into our political discourse to the extent that it is now out of control and allowed to fester without proper challenge. What allowed it to take root so deeply? Why are the most blatant untruths allowed to masquerade as political debate?

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The answer is a terrible consequence of hard-right propaganda, the dominance of fake news over trusted and reliable news sources and an acceptance of a new type of politics which has succeeded in legitimising the tactic of repeating falsehoods until they become accepted. The combination of these factors demands a new response to counteract their terrible effects.

We have all been guilty of underestimating the challenge of the right. I remember believing that four years of President Donald Trump would wake the world up to the dangers he represented.

Reading that sentence back I can hardly believe my own stupidity. It seemed to me obvious that his arguments were based on prejudices and myths rather than truth. But it was not obvious to millions of Americans who required no evidence to substantiate those arguments, just a determination to believe nonsense over facts.

Even after Trump demonstrated the lengths he would go to deny democracy, ignore the presidential election and retain his grip on the White House millions accepted without question his claim that he had been cheated by the political establishment of which he was a central part.

Any hopes I had that the strength of his support had somehow been exaggerated were destroyed by a visit to the US last year when I saw first-hand the pro-Trump posters in garden after garden and heard residents vow to re-elect him whenever they had the chance.

Since then, Trump has become the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes – paying hush money to illegally influence the 2016 election – which seems to have not significantly dented his popularity.

Fast forward to more recent times and it is hardly surprising that he feels emboldened to talk rubbish about vice-president Kamala Harris’s racial identity because he knows that it is not necessary for a slur to have any truth whatsoever to stick and to damage.

He can even suggest that his supporters won’t ever need to actually vote for him after November’s election because “it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine”. In more sensible times those remarks would be chilling. In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, his supporters cheer it.

It’s not just American politicians who have poisoned political discourse. Boris Johnson lied, lied and lied again over Downing Street parties during Covid and got away with it. He indulged in racism too, claiming Muslim women wearing burkas looked “like letter boxes”.

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Nigel Farage has described Vladimir Putin as “brilliant”, posted an anti-immigration poster showing a line of refugees under the slogan “breaking point” and has been accused of antisemitism. He was elected as an MP in July and is a regular commentator on the BBC.

Few, however, descend as far into madness as the infamous Project 2025 which wants to instil conservative Christian values – as well as rejecting abortion and contraception – should Trump be re-elected.

So what do you do when a presidential candidate can claim – falsely – the woman standing to become his opponent “happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black”?

Some news platforms – including the BBC – have adopted the policy of stating in news stories that such claims are not true. The trouble is many people no longer get their news from such trusted sources but from social media.

As I’ve said, the problem is not confined to America. After the horrific killing of children in Southport this week we saw a false name of the 17-year-old accused of the crime being spread all over X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as equally untrue claims he was a refugee who came to the UK by boat and unfounded speculation that he is Muslim.

Merseyside Police circulated the truth – the accused was born in Cardiff, has no known links to Islam and they are not investigating the event as terror-related – but damage had already been done. There have been incidents in different parts of England, including Whitehall and Hartlepool as well as Southport. There have been arrests for violent disorder and assault on an emergency worker, among other finances.

I’ve heard reports from residents of Southport insisting that those taking part in disturbances were not local people but hard-right activists coming from elsewhere. A former chief superintendent of the Met has blamed the “reckless” spread of misinformation for the disorder.

Now the far right is set to parade its bigoted ideology on the streets to Glasgow with a “pro-Union rally”, no doubt promoted by the below-the-line racist nonsense the announcement attracted on Twitter/X.

In its earlier days, social media seemed to offer a widened access to publishing news and opinion. Many thought it offered a democratisation of news. And it is undeniable that it can be fun. Scottish politics on Twitter/X offered it a platform for pro-independence news and opinion which traditional media often denied it (this newspaper excepted, obviously). It can also provide a valuable service.

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I was heartened by a video post on Twitter/X showing a man working to rebuild a mosque wall in Southport before the half-witted far-right thugs could return. It showed that there was hope even in our darkest days.

But it is equally undeniable that the massive growth in social media – and its popularity among those who use it as their primary or only source of news – offers a route for fake news and lies to be accepted as the truth.

If you are a hard-line conservative, you will see no problem with this. You will believe the market supplies a demand and should be left to its own devices.

If, however, you believe that real journalism – journalism that relies on checking facts, using trustworthy and reliable sources and strives to get as close as possible to the truth as possible – is an essential protection for democracy. We will be the poorer for losing it.

There are two problems here. The business model for the provision of journalism has changed. The traditional use of advertising to subsidise journalism has been undermined to such an extent that mainstream news providers now employ significantly fewer journalists.

The second problem is that public faith in journalism has been damaged. Many readers of this newspaper will believe it is the aim of mainstream newspapers to work against journalism.

Weaker journalism platforms and a lack of faith in journalism are a dangerous combination. The answer? Paying for quality journalism that provides a service you appreciate would certainly help. Journalism is not free to produce and publish. Why should you expect to consume it free? And while we’re at it, journalists need to realise they need to create and live up to a reputation for honesty.

Some retweet unsubstantiated rumours just to be first with a story. Stop it. It’s better to be sure than be first. A crash course in media literacy would help too. We’re not born knowing the difference between rumour and fact, between a properly researched news story and whispers picked up on the street. In an age of widespread and targeted misinformation, it pays to learn.

All this is just a start. It’s a beginning that accepts the urgency not to be tricked into believing lies and the dangers of having no way of judging what is true and what is not.

This is a debate which is not just for those in the media. It’s vital for everyone to protect themselves from those who would benefit from our ignorance. Let us know what you think.