It started out largely being an accusatory term used by the American political left to disparage biased and/or incorrect information spread by Trump supporters (mostly, anyway). But then Trump and his supporters decided two could play at that game, and it became almost exclusively a term used by the Trump/Fox News crowd to bash the left.
As a result, the left stopped using it as quickly as they had started, and the term all but disappeared from respectable news sources.
Now, a year and change later, it seems to be coming back.
No point here other than it's fascinating how trends in culture stop, start, and change with time.
It's a far cry from the NYT or Fox News reporting incorrect things, whether deliberately or not, to someone called Foxx News or Non York Times reporting that Islam causes prostate cancer.
If you look at the list here, it's all over the political spectrum, some of it is just plain apolitical scams like the Hawking Scam on a CNN knockoff website or celebrity stalking:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fake_news_websites#Lis...
I also sympathize with your frustration with politics being framed as left/right. I consider myself pretty libertarian, so I often find myself raging against that divide. Nevertheless, that doesn't change the fact that as a matter of practical reality, politics in this country is framed that way, and that shapes how terms are used, how arguments are made, and how things are portrayed in the media...
A Bart Simpson joke was a MAJOR part of this weeks Saturday Night Live.
(This Aussie Rapper’s ‘Simpsons’-Referencing Track Is Cromulent AF) http://www.moshtix.com.au/v2/news/musicnews/this-aussie-rapp...
What I don't understand is the EXTREME uptick in "cromulent" from Google Trends on May, 28th. If someone with stronger Google-Fu could figure it out that would be cool.