Author correctly points out that this is not a new thing. I'm reminded of the quote broadly believed to have been from Karl Rove in the early 2000s, about propaganda and the Iraq war, dunking on people who live by "reality":
The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. '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'.[1]
I'm sure this kind of mentality goes back even further. Someone can probably pull up some Nixon quote... That wasn't my era, so I don't know.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community