Capitol Assault and Charlottesville: "Stop thinking about it ideologically and think about it mechanically"

"Think about how the Internet is a brainwashing machine. It’s this machine that convinces people of these crazy beliefs and what was once insane becomes normal."

The degree to which Charlottesville, and now the Capitol assault, has launched a thousand think pieces is breathtaking. That's not necessarily a bad thing. The effort to find meaning in these events is part of our important national, and local, soul searching. What gets lost, however, is a focus on the mechanics of these events and what they have to teach us. In a Washington Post interview with Elle Reeve, whose excellent reporting on A12 launched her career, there is so much to learn.

"....the mechanism that brought them here [to DC] is similar [to Charlottesville] and I think really important. Which is that social media works as a brainwashing machine. You start off joking about something and then, over time, that just gets repeated so much it becomes a sincerely held belief.

“…There’s also this element of, all of these people who’ve met online and maybe the people in their real-life social circles don’t believe in what they believe in. And that’s frustrating to them. So the energy …