Feedback Loop

I spent the day watching the trial and reading 4chan, 8Kun, Gab, and other places. I wanted to know how this trial was playing in places where the insurrection was planned. Yes, I knew this well before the excellent presentation on this matter by House Managers. I even warned people before the 6th that we would see violence. So it was not surprising at all when it happened.

I wanted to see how the people in these places reacted to the trial.

There were a few common threads to the reaction. The first is that this trial is illegitimate. Proof, the president of the Senate is presiding, not the Supreme Court Justice. Yes, we know, this is a former president, not a sitting president. But for these people, this is good evidence that it is not a real trial.

If this sounds familiar, it should. This is exactly the argument many in the RNC have made. They have not gone as far as attacking the president of the Senate, but they tried to question its legitimacy the first day. Incidentally, this argument has been percolating at 4Chan since the impeachment. So it’s not something members of the Senate picked up by watching CNN or reading the New York Times. It’s been a feedback loop with this very theme with Breitbart and Fox News. It is almost like a dog chasing its tail.

But there was one particular point that resounded to me. This was that there would be…