In many ways, The_Donald fulfils neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin’s vision of Reddit as a “fertile recruiting ground.” Though Anglin’s The Daily Stormer might be more open and aggressive in its white nationalist messaging, all the themes and memes in his “Normie’s guide to the alt-right” can be found among the thousands of threads on The_Donald, which serves as a major vehicle for these ideas to reach the “front page of the internet.”
In what form can white nationalist elements be found on The_Donald on a day-to-day basis? Beyond similarities in language and style, there are substantive parallels in content, with The_Donald acting as a bridge between fringe online communities like /pol/ and the wider internet. And in addition to finding a bigger audience among The_Donald’s more than half a million subscribers, white nationalist ideas gain a measure of legitimacy when they are promoted on a subreddit that once hosted an AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the president himself.