Social media popularity and viral clout is such a powerful drug — it’s literally a drug: it’s constructed that way — that some people will say and do absolutely anything to obtain the next hit.
I mean just look at this. What else could drive someone to do something like this???
Navarro evidently ultimately said she was voting for Clinton but she used the airwaves to legitimize frivolous write-in votes for saying on CNN that she would vote for her mom:
This is Vladimir Herzog, a Jewish immigrant to Brazil who fled anti-Semitism in Croatia during WW2 & became a prominent journalist. 45 years ago today, he was murdered by the US/UK-supported military regime, which then released a fabricated photo to claim he committed suicide. 
The military regime that murdered Herzog came to power when CIA worked with right-wing Brazilian generals to overthrow the democratically elected President in 1964. They ruled for 21 years, torturing & killing many dissidents, including Herzog. @dilmabr was one of those tortured.
It was Herzog’s rabbi who bravely blew the whistle by quickly obtaining his body & revealing that he had been tortured to death during interrogation. That was a key spark that led Brazilians to rise up against the US/UK-supported dictatorship & force re-democratization in 1985.
This is absolutely how mainstream US outlets think: exactly what is said there by Rid (one of those centrist Professor outlets use to elevate their unhinged conspiracy theories with a facade of expertise):
*We have no idea if this conspiracy is true, but we will say it anyway.*
There is no question -- none -- that mainstream US news outlets disseminate more unhinged, unproven conspiracy theories -- and do far more damage with them -- than QAnon, or whichever fringe group they want you to focus on, can achieve in 1,000 years.
Even with Trump gone, Dems and their media outlets are going to keep centering/inflating the threat of Fascism and Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism because that's what keeps everyone in line behind the Dems: we can't fight neoliberalism or imperialism until we've vanquished fascism!
The Democratic Party and its media outlets - MSNBC, CNN, WPost/NYT - are drowning in cash. The key is to keep fear levels high: they keep everyone scared about a fascist takeover & present themselves as the only protectors. It's a model of profit and power that is not going away.
Huge swaths of US liberalism & even the left got convinced over 4 years that institutions like CIA, FBI, NSA, etc. - and neocons/right-wing operatives like David Frum, Bill Kristol, Rick Wilson - might not be perfect but they at least oppose fascism & care about democracy (lol).
Julian Assange has been imprisoned in the UK for 1 1/2 years because US Govt wants to prosecute him for publishing docs exposing war crimes. Convicted of nothing, he has no chance of freedom any time soon: even if he wins, US Govt will appeal & he'll remain imprisoned for years.
The attempted extradition of Assange -- pushed by Pompeo & Jeff Sessions -- is the greatest threat to US press freedoms in years. His -- and Snowden's -- only chance for freedom is a Trump pardon. People forget how repressive & malicious Dems are with whistleblowers. Watch, 2014:
In 2013, even the Obama DOJ -- which prosecuted more whistleblowers for espionage than all previous administrations *combined* -- concluded Assange couldn't be prosecuted without destroying press freedom. But Pompeo & Sessions don't care about that.
What happened in Brazil last year - with anonymous Bolsonaristas publishing obviously forged chats & documents in my name and other journalists and members of Congress - illustrates the point. Brazilian news outlets didn't ignore them: they debunked them.
When those forged emails & docs were published by Bolsonaro's goons about us, reporters asked us and we all said what any person in that situation would say: these chats are fake. That enabled journalists to debunk them. Why don't the Bidens say this?
But again: journalists don't have real doubts about the authenticity of these Hunter docs. That's the pretext, not the reason, for refusing to discuss them (do you believe the same media which spent 4 years on the Steele Dossier & Russiagate have rigorous verification standards?)
Huge number of journalists with CNN, NBC, Politico, the Washington Post, etc. -- who spent all week claiming that the NY Post story was "Russian disinformation" and that its dissemination was reckless -- caused this obvious hoax to go viral by posting it without checking.
Look at how many people just these two media figures alone -- one from @MSNBC, the other from @POLITICOMag/@NYMag -- deceived and misled by recklessly spreading disinformation, a hoax, because it advanced their political agenda so they didn't bother to check first. So many others
However much contempt you have for the mainstream press right now, it's insufficient. I don't have words to adequately convey what they're doing.