Lies and disinformation have tidal effects, and we need to understand that the president is being led by disinformation as much as he is driving it.

We’re up against it. It’s Election Day, everyone is wound tight, and pretty much everyone looking at potential threat intelligence anticipates at least moderate unrest that could stretch from Election Day through to the inauguration.

So, here we are, a few weeks out from Election Day 2020, early voting already well underway — and pretty much everything that every disinformation watcher warned you was going to happen is happening.

We need to avoid the self-fulfilling prophecy of political violence during and after the election.

I think we can all agree that there are a lot of pretty stupid things that politicians say and pretty stupid theories that politicians repeat that we can mostly just ignore because it isn’t hurting anything — other than our heads. But this is not that.