Trump spent his whole life trying to make news in the tabloids. So it’s no surprise to me that he saw the power and influence of the big tabloid papers, which of course dealt primarily in disinformation and conspiracy long before the internet.

Someone close to me had a (good, positive) story published about them in National Enquirer in the 90s. That was the first time I really paid attention to the supermarket tabloids and I was stunned to learn that the National Enquirer was one of the top most read papers in the country (I think they ranked third?).

So the widespread appeal of disinformation and conspiracy started long before Trump. As a creature of the tabloids, he probably understood this long before most everyone else around him and was able to capitalize on it.