Thread by @ariehkovler

I'm writing a few articles about January 6 over the next few weeks. The first: Inside the MAGA mind in the lead-up to the Capitol attack.

arieh.substack.com/p/from-electio…

It starts with the Problem of Trump. "This guy looks like a narcissistic moron but he's a billionaire President so he must be a genius 4d chess player". Trump's
MAGA base thought of him as a cool, calm calculating man with a plan who never loses.

Yeah. I know.

Remember covfefe, a not-at-all mysterious typo that hardcore Trumpers said was a secret Arabic message or some other code?

Of course, there was "the calm before the storm", which to be fair did sound very ominous even though in retrospect he was just trying to sound cool. The mythos around that one remark led, pretty quickly, to early QAnon.

One of the many things QAnon shared with the MAGA milieu it emerged from: the idea that there's a Plan. Patriots in control. Everything's going to be OK. Trump has 5d-chessed it all out.

So many Trump supporters never doubted even for a second that he'd win in 2020. They didn't worry about the election result. They KNEW he'd win, and by a lot and they ruthlessly mocked anyone who suggested otherwise.

https://twitter.com/ariehkovler/status/1321568224606064640

Of course, then, they believed Trump when he told them after the election that he'd won and it was rigged. But a lot of them went further than that: If Trump knew the election was rigged, he must have had a plan all along!

This was a weird time. Fringe theories from 8chan and TheDonald spread on Twitter via the right wing demi-media until eventually Trump himself tweeted them out, fuelling the whole cycle.

For a week, they though Trump and @C_C_Krebs had put all the ballots on a QFS blockchain. Until Trump fired Krebs for defending the integrity of the election. But maybe the ballots were watermarked and the military can reveal it.

@C_C_Krebs Or maybe the CIA hacked the election from Germany. Or it was Italy using satellites. Or Hugo Chavez despite being very dead. Or China, who also invaded Maine from Canada.

All of these theories were really circulating in those weeks!

Some started pushing another way Trump would stay in power: "Crossing the Rubicon". An article by Gamergater Alexander Macris, encouraging Trump to overthrow the Republic like Julius Caesar did, was influential in MAGA circles. I've archived it here:

ariehkovler.com/2021/12/archiv…

Macris's piece, which was frequently posted in threads on TheDonald, suggested that Trump would use the militia — meaning Trump supporters — to help him militarily in fighting a second Civil War. It gave the MAGA faithful a glimpse of a future where they'd take up arms for Trump.

When the call finally came to come to DC, they came. They were sure Trump wouldn't summon them unless it was important. Maybe they'd celebrate his triumph thanks to Pence in Congress. Maybe they'd be a part of his militia. They didn't know, but they were ready.

The article is here. You can also sign up to the mailing list for free, if you're feeling generous before Christmas, become a paying subscriber

arieh.substack.com/p/from-electio…