But theories like this were once the province of the political fringes online and largely ignored by the mainstream press, for fear of breathing life into wild allegations.
Whether it be mainstream media, or fringe media online, the story outlines a hierarchical system where a few people decide what is important and subsequently feed that to the audience.
Allegations that Ellison and Carson are secret Muslim agents with extremist leanings are usually found among fringe groups online, often discussed in dire tones on poorly designed websites.
This conspiracy thinking was by no means confined to the low-traffic online fringe websites – it was amplified and further disseminated by some of the country's most prominent rightwing broadcasters.
Juxtaposed with overtly racist screeds in his manifesto are references to Candace Owens, Spyro the Dragon and Fortnite that are almost certainly meant as inside jokes to the racist online fringe, ones that, if the racists are very lucky, will be misinterpreted by journalists as they comb the manifesto for answers.
The scripts for the videos are typically sourced from fringe right-wing online publications like Truthfeed, Mad World News, Right Wing Tribune, and Right Wing News.
I will accept every criticism of online fringe writing right here and now -- from the lunatics on the Right, to the moonbats on the Left, to the disturbed individuals who are so far off this scale they seem to be listening to broadcasts from the moons of Jupiter.
The Times piece, which was skeptically titled "Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Students Squirm," suggested that trigger warnings are moving from the online fringes to the classroom, and might be more broadly applied to highlight in advance the distress or offense that a work of literature might cause.
The claims may seem harmless, but they do matter, because people desperate for alternative treatment options will always be vulnerable to fringes of the online "wellness" movement proclaiming Western medicine is for suckers.
As has been covered on many occasions by writers more journalistically inclined than I, there is now a pretty well-trodden path from the online fringes of the far right directly to the cable news network our demented big boy in chief spends 60percentt of his waking hours watching.
