A bit rich coming from you, that fact that you've given or gotten merits from every DT member that has given you positive feedback points back to the circle-jerk that I have been speaking of. You merit each other, and you leave each other positive trust. That's all you do.
Correlation is not causation. Don't fall into the trap of pulling in details so that you can satisfy a confirmation bias.
I would also recommend users to cease the alt accusations without any basis (apart from reaching with circumstantial evidence). What eventually happens is that the accusations coalesce into a false reality and we have preconditioned beliefs before even reading the user's replies.
There is a shit-ton of virtue signalling that doesn't get merit, bear in mind. There are plenty of examples of those shitty threads in Meta about merit or some "helpful" content.