Right-wing extremists wage 'meme war' in race to attract angry Trump fanatics

Trump supporters who are angry and disillusioned in the wake of President Joe Biden's inauguration last week are being targeted by far-right groups who are using internet memes to recruit new followers.

The Los Angeles Times reports that groups including the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo Bois, the Three Percenters are flooding the internet with memes aimed at pulling Trump supporters in even more extreme directions.

"We want people who walk away from Trump... to join us," Mike Dunn, a Boogaloo Bois member, told the LA Times. "Memes play a role on the younger generation and we are winning."

The Boogaloo Intel Drop Telegram channel was even more explicit about its goals in reaching out to Trump supporters.

"Whichever group is the most firm in its devotion and has the best mimetic potential will win," the channel wrote to its followers just before Biden's inauguration. "Civic nationalists and libertarians will find themselves in the white nationalist boat before long."

The goal of the memes is to wean Trump supporters away from backing the former president by claiming that he didn't go far enough in promoting the white nationalist cause.

"Followers who click on these channels' memes are led to even more extreme 'terrorgram' channels featuring racist and anti-Semitic memes, including a recently posted cartoon of Trump wearing a Star of David while stabbing a MAGA-hat-wearing supporter in the back," reports the LA Times.