What makes the Bump/Cillizza thesis about WSB being Trumpers particularly, dangerously stupid is that it's factually, demonstrably wrong. As an actual journalist, I've been monitoring their various communications channels for awhile to get a sense of any tangible politics 1/

So, to get that out of the way, there are none. It's not cohesive. These are redditors, first and foremost, they are one of the few remaining vestiges of the hivemind we saw with groups like Anonymous and LulzSec at their height. They like the stocks and they know this is fun 2/

(An aside: fun is something poor/middle class Americans are not supposed to have except in very measured doses via pure consumption. For caterwauling elites, watching the masses loosely organized to have fun at their expense is horror of the first order. They can't stand it.) 3/

Anyway, the closest thing you'd see in the form of political statements on the subreddit or in chat servers until today was a variation of the theme that this is payback for what Wall Street did to Millennials starting in 2008 with the Great Recession. Pure, righteous anger. 4/

This anger, of course, was often linked to the Obama administration's wholesale embrace of the Wall Street system and their policies to favor banks over homeowners. Again, many people citing these policies, expressing the glee of payback, etc. But still really just reaction. 5/

Now this kind of reaction is both: (1) not "reactionary" in the polisci sense; (2) not a coherent worldview that neatly aligns with U.S. politics. But it does echo a lot of what Occupy Wall Street was talking about. And, guess what, lots of posts made this connection explicit. 6/

And, sure, yes, of course, remember: it's Reddit. So, while there were lots of these kinds of posts, the majority were about the lulz and moons. But the angry posts and the left-libertarian-alliance-seeking posts redolent of #OWS got a *lot* of support in the form of upvotes. 7/

Then things went hyper late yesterday and early today. The financial press, quite aware of who butters its bread, started lashing out at the meme-based retail hordes. SEC rumors were stoked. Russians were blamed. Etc. Defensiveness set in and the anger became highly focused 8/

An interesting thing is that Left Twitter started making common cause with the amorphous hedge fund hunters over at Reddit and Discord. Far from just cheering them on for their good work taking down some bad actors, stock skeptics bought into GWB's "ownership society." Weird. 9/

The cryptocurrency community--a third and distinct group--also raised their banner in support of the robinhoods using RobinHood. And all of this mutual support and affection was noticed by the WSB subreddit and beyond. Then a really weird thing happened this afternoon. 10/

Elizabeth Warren and AOC posted statements that could be read one way or another--but which were obviously intended to be understood as stealth support for the emerging meta-message behind WSB: "Wall Street is a fucking casino for the rich with too much power over our lives." 11/

And guess what? The WSB redditors re-posted those tweets from Sen. Warren and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez with glee. Message received. Loud and clear. Another politician, Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist running against Gavin Newsom, was also praised for his support on CNBC. 12/

So, to the extent there are any valid/viable political lessons to be learned here, these largely apolitical folks, mistakenly considered libertarians of some stripe, are willing to make common cause with the left. And two of the biggest progressive figures like what they see. 13/

The Washington Post and CNN, however, want their readers to think this is a function of Trump-style populism. This is all-but fabulism. It's factually incorrect, of course, but they don't care about any real data. They're selling a fake narrative by and for elite solidarity. 14/

And in a way, the fact that Bump, Cillizza and their ilk are lying to people about what's really happening here is highly clarifying, valuable and useful. The one percenters are striking back. This bad journalism and misinformation is part of the upper class counterattack. 15/

So they swiftly closed ranks. A Chomsky truism is: elites do this in the open because they understand their class interests. And they're petrified that an actual political alliance might emerge. That's why they fabricate the stocks version of MAGA--to scare away liberals. 16/16