/pol/ is for trolls, that's why it exists.

Trolls don't take themselves seriously, their pourpose is to cause chaos. The new denizens of /pol/ legitimately believe on the shit they spew and think they're the forefront of some kind of political movement, even though they're just a bunch of fat boomers posting on an internet imageboard.

The Qanon case exemplifies this better then I ever could: they took what a shitposter said as true. They fell for the equivalent of the "my father works at Nintendo" meme and invaded the capitol because of it.

I do think the principle that U.S. conservatives understand U.S. liberals better than the other way around holds true. Liberals control education and civic institutions (unions, mainline protestant churches, charity organizations, civil service positions, etc.) Most importantly, liberals have become the exclusive viewpoint represented in media. Conservatives have very little public voice or self-representation.

Yes, they do so... Inside their own bubbles.

The red states are still controled predominantly by the conservatives, reflecting conservative culture and beliefs.

What people miss in this discussion is that there's a world outside of the internet. Yes, Google and their associated companies are left wing and act upon these beliefs when they censor people, but outside of the internet there's still many places where conservatives have institutional power.

Conservatives have very little public voice or self-representation. They are the counterculture now, and have been since the second Obama administration.

How is conservatism countercultural if the people behind it today are the same career politicians which have been in power for decades now? How's this subversive in any way?

Conservatism as a whole is allergic to subversion, valuing caution, order and hierarchy. It simply can't be subversive without betraying itself.

I'm not even going to touch on the 'cultural' part of countercultural, because the catch here is obvious.