Perhaps you’ve noticed some strange social media posts by the Trump administration. A group of alligators wearing ICE baseball caps. An A.S.M.R.-style video that features people in shackles boarding a deportation flight. An image of a woman being arrested, but rendered in the whimsical style of a Hayao Miyazaki movie. What’s going on here? Why has the White House embraced this inflammatory style of posting? The writer Nathan Taylor Pemberton sees the influence — pervading the government — of a young, very online far-right movement. This cohort grew up in chat rooms and on livestreams, and its members express their disaffection through ironic posts and memes filled with repellent, extreme beliefs. In a political world where online spaces can sway an electorate, especially young men, they have become a potent force in the Republican Party. “These radicalized conservatives, some of whom are working as junior staffers and political operatives across the G.O.P., are showing us the future of conservatism, one demented post at a time,” Pemberton writes. And it’s not just a problem for conservatism. A ruthless, trolling politics, calibrated for social media, may be coming for us all. Read the guest essay: Here’s what we’re focusing on today:
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