The problem is when it's based on bullshit, like the secretary of energy's recent claims that completely covering the earth in solar panels wouldn't be enough energy for our needs. Like his hypothetical Dyson sphere of solar panels, a lie on Twitter can make it around the world before the truth can catch up.
Unfortunately, people seem to see Boogeymen everywhere when they're terminally online. It's kind of like the mid-2010s where everything someone didn't like was "fascist" or "Nazi"
Populist strongmen are rising everywhere; this is a fact. The People have short memories and seemingly have forgotten those who rose to power in the first half of the 20th Century and whom the Americans fought against for the remainder of it.
Apparently now it's time for the world to return to populist authoritarianism and isolationist policy in order to bury our heads in the...sand...until we have to collectively rise against them again. Except, this time, it may be America who bears the brutal brunt.