Inside the Troll Army Waging Trump’s Online Campaign | A team of meme-makers has been flooding social media with pro-Trump posts riddled with sexist and racist tropes. Donald Trump is cheering them on

Much of the group, which refers to itself as Trump’s Online War Machine, operates anonymously, adopting the cartoonish aesthetic and unrelenting cruelty of internet trolls.

Cheered on by Mr. Trump, the group traffics freely in misinformation, artificial intelligence and digital forgeries known as deepfakes. Its memes are riddled with racist stereotypes, demeaning tropes about L.G.B.T.Q. people and broad scatological humor.

Pratai,

So…. There’s this shit going on- and my dad just disowned me because I said “America sucks.”

silence7,

It’s usually a bit more diplomatic to explain what’s imperfect, and describe a better vision for how things could be.

Rapidcreek,

Troll house kookies.

Tedesche,

While I agree that some of this group’s antics are reprehensible, whenever I see articles calling this stuff out in Right-Wing groups, I always think about that statue that was put up in NYC in 2016 of Donald Trump, depicting him naked and with a micropenis and how not a single publication called that out as sexist or inappropriate. This kind of despicable characterization of political opponents does happen on both sides, but we all just get riled up when the other side does it.

We’re all hypocrites.

MindSkipperBro12,

As a great man once said: “You get what you fucking deserve!”

Dio,
@Dio@lemy.lol avatar

It’s quicker to simply state that memes scare you, NYT.

doingthestuff,

Really. Trolls gonna troll. Trumps gonna Trump. The world keeps spinning.

geekworking,

So it’s probably Russia, or maybe NK, or another dictatorship or Fascist state who wants to destroy democracy. Or perhaps it’s just some straight-up traitors.

brain_in_a_box,

Speaking of fascism: assuming all of your countries domestic problems are actually the fault of the devious machinations of sinister foreigners.

squiblet,
squiblet avatar

It's been investigated and found to be true at various times by intelligence agencies and social media companies. Even worse would be to pretend that doesn't happen.

brain_in_a_box,

It’s been investigated and found to be true that all of Americas problems are actually the result of nefarious foreign untermensh? By who? The American Nazi party?

This is Judao-bolshivism, stabbed in the back mythology warmed up for a new audience.

Warl0k3,

Tell me you’re fun at parties without telling me you’re fun at parties…

brain_in_a_box,

I can imagine the kind of ‘parties’ you’re going to where naked fascism is considered fun.

aniki,

That’s because your imagination is the only place where that exists.

brain_in_a_box,

What?

lobut,

I think you may have misconstrued the fact that there’s foreign interference with saying all of the problems are due to that.

brain_in_a_box,

I think you may have misconstrued the fact that saying all problems are due to that with saying there’s any interference at all.

lobut,

Oh, you’re not serious.

Good to know.

brain_in_a_box,

"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."

  • Satre
MindSkipperBro12,

Russia definitely had a hand in trying to elect Trump but don’t discount the stupidity of the average American. They don’t need help to crap their own diapers.

lolcatnip,

We don’t need help, but we have it anyway.

Ensign_Crab, (edited )

Sounds like something a Russian would say.

In seriousness, if you deviate in the slightest from the party’s centrist orthodoxy or criticize their messaging in any way, the accusations of being a Trumpist and a Russian immediately start flying.

Particularly if your criticism comes from the left.

Deceptichum,
Deceptichum avatar

Well at least one is a traitor

The video’s co-creator — Bryan Heestand, a product engineer in Ohio who goes by the anonymous handle C3PMeme

EmpathicVagrant,

If you have a handle tied to your name publicly, it’s not an anonymous handle.

AlecSadler,

Hahaha. “anonymous”. Alrighty.

themeatbridge,

Trump is a festering wound that will keep producing pus if you keep poking at it. Wash your hands, wrap it up, take your antibiotics, and ignore it until it goes away.

Or, in the immortal words of Paul Anka and Lisa Simpson, “Just don’t look!”

silence7,

Problem is that it’s not just Trump at this point.

themeatbridge,

No, but the same rule applies. Trolls feed on attention.

silence7,

You don’t engage directly, but it’s important for people to understand what they’re seeing.

themeatbridge,

Is there anyone anywhere in the world who hasn’t heard of Trump? Anyone who doesn’t already understand exactly what he wants and where he stands? People are not going to be convinced by memes, it’s just for the people who already support him. They’re trying to reframe the debates, and recenter the political landscape around their narrative.

And by engaging with it, you feed into it. You lend it your power. You concede that their ideas are worthy of your time. They are not.

Ensign_Crab,

Problem is, you’re not their intended audience. Their audience is the hate-filled assholes that they can rile up, hopefully into a self-sustaining hate movement. Then all they need to do is the occasional steering and maintenance.

themeatbridge,

And engaging in a Xitter debate amplifies their message, convinces no one, and wastes your time and effort. Focus on real issues, real debates, and don’t let the trolls drag you down to their bullshit.

Ensign_Crab,

I don’t even have a xhitter account.

brain_in_a_box,

It was never “just Trump”

nublug,

yeah i’m sure fascism will just go away on its own if we don’t talk about it.

themeatbridge,

No, we need to aggressively stamp out fascism, but you won’t do that by arguing with xitter memes or amplifying their message by making it a news story.

Read the metaphor again. I didn’t say don’t treat the wound. I said stop poking at it with your dirty fingers.

assassin_aragorn,

As I’ve told conservatives, I’ll stop talking about Trump when they stop worshipping him and making him their leader. Until then, I’m just criticizing the opposition leader.

be_excellent_to_each_other,
be_excellent_to_each_other avatar

All I need is for him to not be the presumptive Republican nominee, to not have influence on the Republican party, and to no longer have an army of stochastic terrorists just waiting for the right signal. Then I can finally in good conscience listen to the unending stream of myopic advice from people on the internet who think we should just ignore him.

brain_in_a_box,

You think the other potential nominees are any better?

be_excellent_to_each_other,
be_excellent_to_each_other avatar

You think the other potential nominees are any better?

The comment was: You should ignore Trump

That's what I replied to.

I'll die of old age before there's any chance a Republican in any election local on up gets a vote from me. I witnessed what conservatives enabled and supported in recent decades, and I saw how it all culminated in recent years. I see how many of them still say they would vote for Trump just because of R next to his name even if they claim they don't support his policies or don't like him. They can't possibly reform themselves enough to get a vote from me within my remaining natural lifespan.

You think the other potential nominees are any better?

So no. But that's not the topic.

brain_in_a_box,

Ahhh, ok, I see what you mean.

themeatbridge, (edited )

I don’t think anyone should ignore Trump or the rise of fascism. I’m saying that you don’t feed the trolls with attention. We should get updates on the various court cases and pay attention to justice being done. But if he and his followers pitch a nutty on social media, that’s not news, and paying attention to it amplifies the message. Debating the crazy nonsense shifts the Overton window further away from reasonable discourse.

It’s how he was elected in the first place. Covering Trump was good television. Lots of viewers tuned in to see what ridiculous fucking bullshit he was say or do next. Making a spectacle of it, building the circus tent around it, made it more powerful because it has no shame. It has no desire to speak truth or be virtuous. Trump and his troll army want you to get down into the mud and wrestle until you’re too tired to fight actual, serious people. Shining a light on it won’t kill the disease, it will encourage it to grow.

Think of it like a child’s temper tantrum. You don’t get down on the floor of the department store and argue about why they can’t have ice cream before dinner. You deal with the tantrum, whether it’s taking them home or otherwise punishing bad behavior, but you don’t engage in the tantrum.

be_excellent_to_each_other,
be_excellent_to_each_other avatar

I see your point, but if we don't talk about it then we don't know it's happening. There's no one here in this thread arguing with anyone about it, it's just people learning one more thing to remember if (somehow) they are still on the fence about whether they would vote for him.

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