Obviously this is who Trump is and this is what Trumpism is. But there's part of this that isn't widely enough known, tho it's well-known to a lot of reporters. And that is among GOP operatives and staffers under 30 or so the majority, maybe the great majority had their ...
2/ political awakenings on sites like 4chan, 8chan, various far-right, incel and incel adjacent online communities. It crops up in various ways if you know where to look. It's why DeSantis had those weird frankly homoerotic campaign vids during the primaries.
3/ They're all awash in this world of casual racism, ironic provocation, not just misogyny but a weird emotionally-stunted kind of misogyny that to normal people isn't just often either offensive or weird but even kind of inexplicable because it's a very weird ...
4/ inside idiom and self-referential world that is fairly alien to mainstream audiences. Again, I know I'm not saying anything new to say Trumpers are weird and racist and sexist and all the rest. But young staffers make up the world of political life. They're ...
5/ not the 'talent' or the big names yet. But they're the workforce that makes thing happen. And that weirdo 4chany world is just deeply, deeply in the DNA. It's not just that they're into Trumpism. It's that that largely only world is the space and the idea world ...
6/ that made them decide they were conservatives, or Republicans or whatever association and home-ness in the right and far-right they have. So like I said, it's deep deep in the political DNA.
7/ ... continued / We know this in a watch just from watching the current GOP and when it comes to the surface in these weird ways. But I first realized this through various stories from the last five or six years, usually involving this or that outrage or scandal ...
8/ and over-time it became really obvious that LOTS of these guys had very long histories/online identities in that world. In most cases with political origin stories in which they found their political identities in those online spaces. maybe it's not surprising that ...
9/ ones who got in trouble or stepped on a rake in some way had those backgrounds. But the other ones did too. Like it just kept coming up again and again. If you follow politics you know these guys are out there. We've been in this post-gamergate world for years. But I think ...
10/ people don't put two and two together a lot that this is where the new generation of GOP staffers and operatives is coming from. Again, under 30? Maybe a touch older. Not just in the offices and campaigns of the crazies but in those of the semi-normal folks too.
11/ It's just pervasive. And really it's not surprising because it fits with the current politics of the GOP. But it's a bit ominous for the future. If you followed D politics in the 80s, 90s, aughts, you knew that pretty much all the big people, the candidates, the powerful ...
12/ operatives had all first met on the Mcgovern campaign. Almost didn't matter whether they were on the right or left of the party. That was the formative experience for all of them. In 2036 in the GOP it's going to be 4chan.
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