Josh Marshall has been closely following the recent South Korean coup and subsequent fallout and has uncovered something (via this article) that I’ve not heard anyone else report. He notes that while S. Korea may be a more recent democracy by American standards it’s actually very well entrenched. But it also has a social media ecosystem that resembles our own with right wing extremists dominating the scene. The country’s reaction to the attempt can best be described as a widespread “What the fuck?” Like not even, “this won’t stand!” or “we’ll defend our democracy!”, though those were there too. The immediate reaction to Yoon’s move was as much bafflement as fear or anger. The whole thing was so crazy and out of left field that people struggled to understand what Yoon had even been thinking. That’s why the attempted coup played out as it did and why Yoon is currently out of power and looking at likely treason charges. So back to our far-right YouTubers. The gist is that Yoon was basically living in a hothouse of right-wing Korean YouTube fake news — the opposition is plotting with North Korea!, the elections are overrun by voter fraud! — that he both appears to have bought into these conspiracy theories and also imagined that a big slice of the country did too. Whether this is precisely true or is a total explanation is a secondary matter to me. As we’ve learned from recent stateside experience, the world of early 21st century…