Authors K. Chen
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This sounds insane and yet it's pretty much what happened.
If we're being extremely sober-minded about this, in a tight election there's always multiple causes and movements are caused by a complex interplay of factors etc etc.
But it's also true a far right tumor grew within gamer communities and
To me the big mystery of 2016 is always going to be how did Trump, who has no redeeming characteristics, get a perfectly normal number of votes? Why did multiple parts of our political immune system fail? A large part is that the GOP qua Party was weaker than we thought.
Gamergate and its spawn did a couple things to the immune system. It directly stressed it by creating a dangerous identity in a way it turns out it could not handle, and it revealed flaws that other bad actors took advantage of.
If you time-traveled and you eliminated Eron Gjoni before he hit "publish" would Donald Trump still be elected in 2016? I honestly don't think so, because it was such a close election. But the dominoes would still be in a place for a different trigger that could have happened.
For context, the far right exploded in size because a dude claimed his ex gf slept with a games journalist to get a positive review, and white nationalist oppurtunists used that as a launch point for the "alt right" which directly lef to Trump's election, which mishandled covid.
— Charredasperity (@TheZeroVirus) December 30, 2020
If we're being extremely sober-minded about this, in a tight election there's always multiple causes and movements are caused by a complex interplay of factors etc etc.
But it's also true a far right tumor grew within gamer communities and
Not to minimize the impact of Gamergate on those affected, but its an incredible stretch to say that it led to 2016. Its way easier to explain it with intra-GOP dynamics such as the Tea Party and the 2013 immigration bill
— klaus on netflix propaganda account (@akaashkolluri) December 31, 2020
To me the big mystery of 2016 is always going to be how did Trump, who has no redeeming characteristics, get a perfectly normal number of votes? Why did multiple parts of our political immune system fail? A large part is that the GOP qua Party was weaker than we thought.
Gamergate and its spawn did a couple things to the immune system. It directly stressed it by creating a dangerous identity in a way it turns out it could not handle, and it revealed flaws that other bad actors took advantage of.
If you time-traveled and you eliminated Eron Gjoni before he hit "publish" would Donald Trump still be elected in 2016? I honestly don't think so, because it was such a close election. But the dominoes would still be in a place for a different trigger that could have happened.