The rise of the infinite fringe

The Verge: “The past decade of politics, to put it bluntly, has been batshit. The past week of politics has been batshit. Heck, the past week of everything in the world that has anything to do with political decisions — diplomacy, trade, manufacturing, having a 401k, owning a car or a computer or a phone or a T-shirt — has been batshit. But if you were asked to use a word that was not a swear, and were given about five minutes to calm down, a good second choice would be “disintegrated.” There’s no clear answer, however, as to why — why it seems like people are living in their own separate realities; why our leaders seem to operate via conflicting conspiracy theories and obscure philosophies; why it feels like a screaming, ephemeral electronic blob called the internet is actually running the world instead of the people supposedly in charge of it. There is an actual, human person at the center of it, and his name is Robert Welch — a right-wing figure more influential than Alex Jones, QAnon, and Ronald Reagan combined. His influence is so silent, though, that you won’t find his content online: no podcasts, no livestreams, no social media accounts; no Mar-a-Lago selfies on Instagram or X posts defending the latest malpractice in the Trump administration. You might even have a hard time finding an image of his face because Robert Welch has been dead for nearly 40 years. But he plays a critical role in modern American history, both for the story of his rise and the means of his decline…”