If there is one word that sums up the Trump years, it’s disinformation. Through every storyline, narrative, tweet, and scandal, a struggle with basic truth has persisted below the surface. It erupted this month in violence at the U.S. Capitol after the president’s most fervent supporters were fed fetid and festering lies for years.

Trump rose to prominence on falsehoods, and every day since his campaign began, he’s operated an ecosystem that’s perfectly primed for them. This disinformation, from the start, hasn’t been by chance. It’s the entire game. 

It’s a playbook that has been coordinated, organized, and weaponized. Trump-friendly sites have no desire to vet information passed to them, and dubious news channels push massive smears. The main players of the Trump world don’t do this in the hopes that it works. They do it because it works.

With the Trump Disinformation Project, the Daily Dot takes you behind the scenes with nine different stories from the past four years that expose those plans. How did the Gateway Pundit analyze and process all of Hunter Biden’s laptop in a week? How could QAnon go from an obscure message board to charging the Capitol? How could one of the president’s sons convince millions an election was stolen? And what happens next?

You need to be prepared. Because over the next four years, the far-right of the Republican party, already well-versed in the strategy, will do anything to claw its way back to the top.