The Atlantic: “Over the past two days, Trump loyalists have been bickering online over whether to take credit for and celebrate their most dramatic action yet, or distance themselves from the scene by calling up familiar conspiracy theories to explain it away. Some may genuinely believe, as they say, that paid ‘crisis actors’ are responsible. Many don’t seem to know what they believe, or what is most savvy to present, and pivot from post to post. Still others, like Gray, are consistently frustrated and outraged that anybody on their side wouldn’t be proud of what happened Wednesday afternoon. ‘The blue-check conservatives, all the popular ones, put ‘1776’ in their bios and tweet about how it’s time for patriots to stand up and fight,’ he told me. ‘Then they turn around and condemn patriots doing exactly that.'”

“The coalition, in other words, is experiencing a schism – and you can watch it on Twitter, or by flipping through Instagram Stories. As soon as #StopTheSteal went offline in a serious, dangerous way, everyone who had been posting about it had to choose a side, or a reality. Broadly, the Republican establishment and its voters have had to grapple with whether they want to continue claiming the party’s radical flank. Wednesday ‘was probably the most visceral experience of watching a political party fracture,’ says Joan Donovan, the research director at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. ‘It seems to me that we’re in the midst of watching MAGA become its own movement.'”