Despite finding Donald Trump's performance unsatisfactory, 4chan and Reddit users, according to various news reports banded together late on Monday night to manipulate an estimated 70 online polls to make it seem as if the Republican presidential nominee had won the first presidential debate at Hofstra University.

As one user correctly noted on message board 4chan, "/pol/ has enough manpower to change the outcome of a poll with 1.3 million votes," referring to the site's politics-focused thread.

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Another user tried to put a better spin on Trump's excuse for alleging stiffing contractors ("Maybe he didn't do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work") by offering up: "As an alpha [Trump] has no problem with asserting his will. You beta cucks wouldnt understand because when the waiter brings you the wrong order you are too busy shoe gazing at your cell phones to dispute in front of your step-sons mom."

"Trump won," another 4chan user wrote, alluding to the mainstream media: "MSM in denial but the numbers don't lie."

By Tuesday morning, however, anonymous 4chan users awoke to a combination of debate hangover and identity crisis. The Daily Beast pinpointed the alt-right's tidal shift to Trump's suggestion that the Democratic National Committee hack might have been perpetrated by "someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds." In a quick phrase, Trump had insulted the hackers and denizens of the internet. Some users felt the need to pivot.

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"If you vote for either candidate," one 4chan user declared, "you are a traitor cuck who deserves to have their god-given rights taken from them."

"How does /pol/ feel now that the election is over?" a self-aware 4chan user asked for us. "I suppose you'll have to go back to your shitty, miserable life now the Drumpf's campaign has totally derailed."

"The very reason we're hearing all this post-debate discussion of biased moderators and microphones not working is spin for the Trump loss," another 4chan conceded.

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Perhaps the most noteworthy admission came from a 4chan user who openly acknowledged the big scary alt-right's satirical (and inflammatory) edge: "CTR shills still not realising that pol is a board of satire and our only mission is to meme the retarded manchild to the white house for the lulz."

So now we know.