I lived through that idiocy and you're not wrong, but I really don't think all those trolls and Pajama Nazis would be particularly dangerous without elite backing.

Some of it may have been organic at first, but things don't stay organic for long these days. The instant there's even a whiff of a popular movement that can be exploited the propagandists are on it... especially if it's a movement that can be exploited so as to win an election or make money. The thing that made that stuff dangerous was elites and their water-carriers like Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, Milo Yiannopolis, Rupert Murdoch, etc. empowering and steering all those useful idiots.

The Pajama Nazis have a camp of doppelgängers that I've come to call Basement Bolsheviks, but they haven't had much impact since that camp of idiots doesn't seem useful to anyone with money and power (yet?).