You Should Have Taken Alt-Right Trolling Seriously
Donald Trump’s hostile takeover over the Republican Party in the mid-2010s was aided and abetted by an internet culture that posted such vile, racist, and often violent words and imagery that the only rational response was disgust.
“But it was all for the Lulz,” the right-wing trolls who spawned this culture would say. “You’re triggered, snowflake! The right’s just getting better at comedy and you can’t handle it.”
Whether it was Milo Yiannopoulos on mainstream social-media platforms or one of the many anonymous shitposters on 4chan—some horrible things were said and done in the service of “owning the libs.” But it was all harmless “trolling,” they’d insist.