The ways that data has been weaponized to amplify insecure people's fear of social change and "others" in order to vote against their own economic interests are novel and fascinating. Yes, obviously the pattern has played out before the internet. But if you approach it with curiosity rather than writing it off because it looks similar on the surface to something you've seen before, it's actually very interesting.

That existed sort of largely outside the public sphere. There was a digital dual in those old times.

Now, there is no digital dual. https://www.roughtype.com/?p=2090

And worse here, the very worst have figured out how to keep making reality pay attention to the absolute garbage misery show. A newsgroup dust-up might have caught some small coverage, but the way the troll-forces of the world have mobilized and radicalized their shitizens at scale, and the stochastic terror they have focused on creating: it keeps the rest of reality all too glued to the sick farce programming the aggressor forces against the world anti-campaign on.