Josh Marshall has been closely following the recent South Korean coup and subsequent fallout and has uncovered something (via this article) that I’ve not heard anyone else report. He notes that while S. Korea may be a more recent democracy by American standards it’s actually very well entrenched. But it also has a social media ecosystem that resembles our own with right wing extremists dominating the scene.
The country’s reaction to the attempt can best be described as a widespread “What the fuck?” Like not even, “this won’t stand!” or “we’ll defend our democracy!”, though those were there too. The immediate reaction to Yoon’s move was as much bafflement as fear or anger. The whole thing was so crazy and out of left field that people struggled to understand what Yoon had even been thinking. That’s why the attempted coup played out as it did and why Yoon is currently out of power and looking at likely treason charges.
So back to our far-right YouTubers. The gist is that Yoon was basically living in a hothouse of right-wing Korean YouTube fake news — the opposition is plotting with North Korea!, the elections are overrun by voter fraud! — that he both appears to have bought into these conspiracy theories and also imagined that a big slice of the country did too. Whether this is precisely true or is a total explanation is a secondary matter to me. As we’ve learned from recent stateside experience, the world of early 21st century media and politics is one in which belief is highly motivated and volitional. You believe what is helpful to believe. You often “believe” as a form of aggression. I don’t know nearly enough about Korean politics to answer this question of the role of alternative media in this story. I’ll be curious what conclusions more knowledgable people come to over time. But my impression is that this is at least part of the story.
It’s an imperfect analogy. But it reminded me of a revelation some of us had in the latter part of the first Trump administration watching the actions of Bill Barr, who of course many DC commentators viewed as an “institutionalist” who would keep Trump on the rails. Barr of course did part ways with Trump toward the very end and would not go along with what culminated on January 6th. Low bar, but I guess give everyone their due. But he went along with and enabled quite a lot. And the answer was simple: what made you think Bill Barr wouldn’t be awash in the Fox News Cinematic Universe just as much as every other right-wing white Catholic guy over seventy years old? It makes perfect sense. Of course he would.
It seemed clear to me, and to people like Josh Marshall and others who follow this scene, that Bill Barr suffered from a serious case of Fox News brain rot, a malady that has a number of other associated diseases like X brain rot and Joe Rogan brain rot and Steve Bannon brain rot. It’s a communicable disease among Republicans and afflicts all strata of society from the likes of Bill Barr to Samuel Alito to Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s ecstatic rally goers.
There is something we need to recognize about all this which, while it may not fix the problem, at least lets us know what the problem is not:
These stories and analogues also grant a degree of perspective, humility and perhaps bits of encouragement as we try to make sense of our own situation just in advance of the beginning of the second Trump administration. When we think about the alternative media landscape or Kamala Harris’ rush decisions from late July until Election Day, it’s easy to get the idea that the world as we have it came down to the decisions of this or that high-profile political or journalistic elite. When we see very similar events playing out in very different political cultures we’re reminded that we always greatly overplay the role of individual decision-making. We are in fact awash in big global social, cultural and political trends that we only partly understand. We play important roles navigating these winds and tides. But the winds and tides themselves aren’t of our making.
We need to try to understand these winds and tides and figure out ways to survive them and stop the people who are exploiting them to loot and destroy . But they’re happening whether we like it or not.
And, by the way, it’s important to start realizing that this right wing brain rot virus, whether Q-Anon or Sean Hannity, affect a huge number of Trump voters. This idea that the online trolls are different from the salt-o-the-earth Trumpers isn’t correct. They’re all online, watching Fox and Newsmax and/or listening to talk radio. That ecosystem is pervasive.