Reports surfaced last night that set the social media world on fire. Apparently, President Obama and President-Elect Trump were briefed on information obtained by a former British intelligence agent who put together a file of opposition research. The file and the information is not classified, nor is it the product of our intelligence agencies. The memorandum has apparently been floating around Washington, D.C. for a few weeks, but no one has published it because the information has not been verified. After CNN broke the news of the briefing, Buzzfeed decided to publish the memorandum itself.

At its core, the potential scandal is about Trump’s alleged extended relationship with Russia and how, or if, that relationship went into the campaign. The allegation is that Russia has compromising information on Trump, which makes the President-Elect vulnerable to Russian manipulation. Lawfare has an excellent take on all of this, as does David French over at National Review Online. Readers should beware that the rabbit hole is deep, dark, and gets disturbing.

As Lawfare makes abundantly clear, it is impossible to know right now what is true or false. We should be cautious about assuming anything. President-Elect Trump has denied everything and we should assume he is telling the truth until additional evidence comes forth.

The content is potentially destructive, but the atmosphere makes it even more vexing. There is little doubt we have moved fully into a democratic age. There are no more authorities, it seems, that have the credibility to sift through information and judge its validity. Fairly or not, we’ve arrived at a point, culturally, where we now assume information is tainted beyond redemption even before we receive it. The media, in the eyes of many, did not give Mr. Trump a fair shake, so his followers are convinced even real news is “fake news” if it is negative. Our non-partisan government agencies, especially the intelligence and law enforcement communities, are now seen, fairly or not, as part of the political system. The FBI dipped more than a toe into the electoral waters last year, perhaps decisively. President-Elect Trump continues to challenge the objectivity of the CIA, the NSA, and others when they allege Russian involvement in our most recent election.

I am not yet convinced things are as bleak as they seem. I think media members were surprised by the election results, but that is not evidence, by itself, they were in the bag for Clinton. Nearly all of the evidence pointed toward a Clinton win. The fact it was flawed was not always the media’s fault. Trump, and others, dismiss intelligence reports because sometimes intelligence is wrong. Well, sometimes, nearly everything is wrong. When evaluating a slugger, we cannot only focus on the strikeouts. The difference is the intelligence communities’ strikeouts are obvious, while their home runs are frequently private. Besides, it is lazy and merely deflection to deny a current claim based only on a previous result, especially when the two are totally unrelated.

Of course, Mr. Trump has caused much of this doubt. He made media contempt a cornerstone of his campaign. He derides experts as part of the entitled elite. He has made himself the only credible arbiter, as if his Twitter feed were being printed onto stone tablets. At some point, he will need other people to corroborate his words and his thoughts. My guess is he will praise and elevate sources so long as they agree with him and when they don’t, they’ll be portrayed as “hacks” or “over-rated.”

All of this is deeply fascinating. There is so much to unpack about the relationship between Trump, Truth, Objectivity, Authority, Elites, and the Populace. This most recent episode is just the beginning. After all, Trump is not even president yet.