My quick reading of this article suggests that Zuesse argues that we are constantly being lied to by "authoritative sources"; but in spite of this, we continue to go back to those same sources in the future. He doesn't offer any explanation for this rather startling discovery except he posits that people like to be lied to. So, permit me to offer my explanation of his discovery which I believe to be absolutely true as his assembled evidence attests to.
This phenomenon of lying which many people support offers another clue as to what kind of society we live in. Although out of fashion in today's worldview (dictated by capitalists in the ruling class of the US Empire), we live in a class structured society that pretends, for historical reasons, to be some sort of "democracy". This ideological edifice requires a tremendous amount of lying. Those who fail to go along with ruling class lies are punished as outcasts and forced to live very marginal lives. This fact of reality effectively discourages most people from being dissidents and actively opposing capitalist ruling class policies and actions. It also offers an explanation of why they look to ruling class explanations which are always made clear in corporate media. You see, Karl Rove, one of the major ruling class handlers for George W. Bush, expressed this fact of reality very well when he said:
We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.Hence most people who cannot accept leading marginal lives look to corporate media to define their reality; and with the election of Donald Trump as figurehead CEO of the Empire, which was a shock to many people, they figure that the reality has changed and they want to learn about this new reality by following corporate "news" media.
Although I can't be certain at this early stage, I believe that political reality really hasn't changed significantly--only superficially. The Broadway musical "Hamilton" may have signaled a change of style of ruling class ideology, but not its practice. However conformist Americans, especially among the middle class, may need to learn about the new style so that they can parrot the memes of this new reality to preserve their own comfortable lifestyles.