Facebook's anti-Trump news surge

'I want to be as blunt as a punch in the eye,' says Dan Rather, whose page has gained a million followers in less than two months.

Social media made Donald Trump president; now, it’s seeding a new industry of Facebook news pages dedicated to bringing him down.

The trove of new anti-Trump and left-leaning pages, many of which did not exist before November 8, are now nearly as popular on the social networking site as veteran publications that have been around for years.

News and Guts, a Facebook page created by former CBS anchorman Dan Rather less than two months ago, now has more than one million followers on Facebook, a nearly identical number to Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill, which was founded in 1994.

Rather told POLITICO that he views News and Guts as a news site, one beholden to facts, even if its take on President Donald Trump is a negative one.

“I think that part of the attraction of our news site is we try to be candid and direct,” Rather said. “We don’t spend much time debating ourselves about how to soften something or use a euphemism or even sophistry. I want to be as blunt as a punch in the nose.”

Two others, “Stand Up America” and “Donald Trump Is Not My President,” were created in the aftermath of the election, and now have close to one million and close to 500,000 followers, respectively. Another, the Democratic Coalition Against Trump, was founded in April 2016, and now has more than 250,000 followers.