As a test of the use of social media as a permission structure machine, the Iran deal was therefore a necessary prelude to Russiagate, which marked the moment in which the “mainstream media” was folded into the social media machinery that the party controlled, as formerly respected names like “NBC News” or “Harvard professor Lawrence Tribe” were regularly advertised spouting absurdities backed by “top national security sources” and other validators—all of which could be activated or invented on the spot by clever aides with laptops, playing the world’s greatest video game.