Trumps small loan of $1 million from his dad was, in truth, worth more than $60 million.
Trump's "small loan" of $1 million from his dad was, in truth, worth more than $60 million. Joe Raedle / Getty Images

One week ago today, The New York Times demolished the self-made billionaire myth that helped Donald Trump become president. How come it already feels as if the Times story never happened?

Yes, there's a lot else going on. Yes, a lot of people already assumed (correctly) that Trump, who lies about pretty much everything, probably lied about his origin story, too. But it takes a certain "method" to make sure a story as big as this Times investigation disappears quickly from the public consciousness, argues journalism professor Jay Rosen:

Read Rosen's whole thread here. He's describing what other people have cast as kind of DDoS attack on our democracy's normal circuits of accountability.

"Flooding the system with too much news, much of it misleading or simply false, not only reduces the weight of any individual story; it has the further effect of keeping opponents in a pop-eyed state of outrage, which in turns shows supporters a hateful image of the other side," Rosen writes.

In this light, patient focus—including the focus it takes to read an article as long as this one—constitutes a form of resistance.