For the past several months, many of us have written about the defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News. Court documents contained any number of interesting revelations. (Confirmations?)

A Fox reporter fact-checked claims made by lawyers for President Trump. A network executive reacted badly to this. He told the reporter that she needed to do a better job of “respecting our audience.”

A popular host said, “You don’t piss off the base.” (That is not journalism, of course. It is something else.)

One of the executives worried that viewers were switching to the Newsmax channel, in search of even wilder fare than Fox was offering. The exec issued a warning: “Do not ever give viewers a reason to turn us off. Every topic and guest must perform.”

“Perform” is the word, really.

On the eve of trial, Fox settled with Dominion for $787 million.

Over the years, many of my preferred candidates have lost an election: Bush 41, Dole, McCain, Romney. The 1992 and 2012 elections stung me especially. But all of those men took their losses like men. And then there was Trump.

His ego — resembling that of a spoiled brat — could not take losing. So he cried “Rigged!” and inspired what seemed half the country to do the same. He plunged the whole country into a drama so that his ego could be assuaged.

What if he had simply conceded the election? Greeted the president-elect in the Oval Office? Attended his successor’s inauguration? All of those normal things? The country would have been spared this drama. Instead, lies, spawned by Trump, spread through America like a poison.

Post-2016, many people mocked the idea that “character is destiny” or even that character matters at all. But it matters a great deal. It is practically the whole ballgame. And Trump’s character — and what it wakened in others — has had a terrible effect on our country.

You can appeal to better angels or worse angels. Both exist, both hover. Trump appeals to the worse ones — the worst ones — time after time. Leadership matters. More than I ever knew, frankly. We are supposed to be a nation of individualists, a “bottom-up” society, not a “top-down” one. And yet — leadership makes a huge difference. Disturbingly huge, in my view.

Trump always cries “Rigged!” — sometimes in advance. He cried “Rigged!” when he lost primaries and caucuses in 2016. In the general election, he said that, if he lost, it would be because of a rigged election, only. He said the same in 2020 — during the general election. And, of course, we saw what he did after.

“Rigged!” is his game. It’s his move. Why do millions have to cooperate with him? They make it their game, their move, too.

Obviously, there are Trumpist true-believers — people who trust his every word. But many people are “jes’ playin’.” I’m talking about people in politics and in the media. They say one thing in private and another in public. They keep gullible, deceived people, gullible and deceived. They keep people who are aboil, aboil.

They have a lot to answer for.

Some of my nearest and dearest are Trumpist true-believers. And when I see people who know better — who are jes’ playin’ — fuel their false fire, I myself boil.

Many of us in journalism have had the experience of hearing people say one thing in green rooms — something truthful, something realistic — and a completely different thing on the air. Or they say truthful things during commercial breaks and untruthful things when back on the air. Like an actor slipping into a role. Red hat off, red hat on.

“I am not only witty in myself,” says Falstaff, “but the cause that wit is in other men.” Trump is not only deceitful in himself, he is the cause of deceit, or he prompts deceit, in a great many others. This is extraordinary. Or ordinary? People really do follow leaders, for good or ill, whether we like it or not.

Trumpers say that anti-Trumpers don’t respect Trump voters. Many don’t, surely. But who has less respect for Trump voters than Trumpist elites? You don’t lie to people you respect. You don’t keep them in ignorance — especially when the effects are so deleterious.

It is not Shakespeare, but I do think of a song lyric (Jerry Herman): “Who else but a bosom buddy will sit down and level, will give you the devil, will sit down and tell you the truth?”

I’m glad that Dominion Voting Systems, Smartmatic, et al., are standing up for themselves. I’m glad they are not taking defamation lying down. In standing up, they are benefitting themselves, of course. But they are also benefitting society at large, I think.

It is very, very hard to win a libel or defamation suit in America. The standards are very high, very strict. Renata Adler wrote an instructive book about this. She was a student of the Sharon and Westmoreland cases. (Sidenote: I met her at Bill Buckley’s house one night.) Evidently, Dominion had Fox dead to rights. The material in those court filings was, again — head-spinning.

There is an old expression: “You are what you eat.” I have taken to saying, “You are the media you consume.” Consume wisely, and widely, if possible. A little Right, a little Left, a little center. A little conservative, a little populist, a little progressive — on and on. It’s hard to maintain a healthful media diet. For one thing, who has the time? (And fewer have the inclination, I feel sure.) But still . . .