The meetings took place in counties all across the United States, starting with the early Republican primary states, and people would get more and more fired up at what they saw as “us vs. them.” What began as their digital fantasy, sitting alone in their bedrooms late at night clicking on links, was becoming their new reality. The narrative was right in front of them, talking to them, live in the flesh. Whether or not it was real no longer mattered; that it felt real was enough.
