Perhaps at some point over the past two years, upon learning that Donald Trump had once again used his personal Twitter account to disseminate vile anti-Muslim agitprop or implement bigotry as official policy or threaten nuclear annihilation or admit to crimes or just generally be an asshole to someone he can't control, you have idly wondered, Wait, how did this happen? Who is responsible for plunging America into this dystopian fever dream in which the resolution of every issue of global consequence hinges on the whims of an angry old man, expressed 280 characters at a time, with no regard for standard capitalization conventions?

At last, we have something resembling an answer to these questions, although I should warn you that large chunks of that answer are exactly as depressing and/or infuriating as you'd expect. On Thursday, Politico published an extensive interview with one Justin McConney, the 32-year-old freelance social-media consultant who spent six years working for Trump before leaving in 2017.

If you set aside Trump's own agency in being an unhinged, racist boor who feels compelled to share those characteristics with the world using any method available to him, the @realdonaldtrump Twitter account's prevalence in our lives is, more or less, all Justin McConney's fault.

"The moment I found out Trump could tweet himself was comparable to the moment in 'Jurassic Park' when Dr. Grant realized that velociraptors could open doors," recalled McConney, who was the Trump Organization’s director of social media from 2011 to 2017. "I was like, 'Oh no.'"

McConney's origin story is similar to those of most characters who become part of Trump's inner circle: some combination of opportunism, nepotism, and convenience. His father was the Trump Organization's controller, and in 2011 a few executives asked McConney, a 24-year-old film-school graduate, to create a highlight reel of the company's golf courses for an upcoming event. The final product caught the eye of the boss, who invited him to Trump Tower for a meeting; there, McConney pitched him on boosting his Twitter activity, which at the time consisted mostly of anodyne posts promoting his latest book.

Trump seemed vaguely interested. His company had dabbled in the area, but Trump had little understanding of it.

"I’ve heard of that," McConney recalled Trump saying. “Isn’t that what [then president Barack] Obama used?"

Trump did not take, shall we say, naturally to the service, at first employing many of the same tactics preferred by your aunt who politely calls to tell you that she likes a photo she saw you post on Facebook.