Warning: This analysis contains highly offensive and potentially triggering language and imagery.
White supremacists and neo-Nazis couldn’t be more thrilled about Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations, family separation, and immigrant roundups.
Now that Trump has won the presidency, and announced the appointments of anti-immigrant hardliners Stephen Miller, who has tight ties to white nationalists and is poised to be White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, and Tom Homan, who has long called for mass deportations, family separations, and other punishing policies, and will serve as “Border Czar,” extremists are over the moon and anti-immigrant rhetoric online is exploding.
This wave of excitement and support has been especially pronounced on the most racist and violent social media platform in the world, 4chan, known for hosting neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and mass shooters.
Mentions of anti-immigrant terms including “deportation,” “invasion,” “rounding up,” and “self-deportation,” and other terms, as well as the racist conspiracy theory the “Great Replacement,” which alleges that liberal elites are purposefully bringing non-white immigrants into the country in order to change its ethnic and political make-up (oftentimes with antisemitic connotations), skyrocketed the week of the election.
While these topics have always been popular points of discussion on the platform, the election, and Trump’s call for “mass deportations,” clearly resonated with 4chan’s racist extremists leading to a 66 percent increase in anti-immigrant rhetoric from previous weeks in October. In the first twelve days of November, there was a 40 percent increase in rhetoric of this type when compared to the entirety of the month of September.
When compared to the period from August 8 to September 17, anti-immigrant rhetoric averaged anywhere between 400 and 600 weekly mentions on the platform. In the week of the election, this number spiked to over 2,400 mentions (380 percent increase). Much of this was specifically driven by election-related discussions, the subsequent Trump victory, and his nominations of Miller and Homan.
On 4chan, one user stated that “Trump should deport all demographics that did not give him 50 percent.” Another user said “That’s why I’m glad Trump won so he can deport these fuckers back to their shitholes. The government should be giving me benefits by being a natural born citizen. Fuck the immigrants, they’re the one’s who’s destroying the country.” Another elaborated that they did not care what Trump did while in office “as long as he expels non-whites from America via deportation” and gets rid of birthright citizenship.
Source: 4Chan
Others were sympathetic to the idea of bringing back “concentration camps.” One user said, “Trump is bringing back internment camps for Asian immigrants with Legal status,” while another said “Trump talking about vengeance camps was what got me and most of [4chan channel] /pol/ out voting for him.”
Others were more explicitly antisemitic with their violent ideation. On a thread discussing the high percentage of the Jewish-American population who voted for the democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, one user made clear references to the Holocaust: ““TRUMP WON BY A LOT. GET IN THE RAIL-CARS. DEATH CAMPS ARE WAITING. OVEN TIME!” This view was shared by others on the platform, with one user stating that ”Trump might do a 180 and kill all the jews. FEMA already has Holocaust camps ready.”
Trump’s victory was also seen as a blow against the “Great Replacement” with one user saying, “Democrats last chance of a president is 2028. In 2032 there will never be a Democrat president unless they drastically move rightward. Electoral college and demographic shifts basically guarantees it. 2028 they will have to mass import illegals and grant them mass amnesty or they are fucked forever. This is why they have been mass importing illegals to setup a mass amnesty. If Trump is able to mass deport them there is no future for the Democratic Party unless they shift all their politics to the right/center to compete.”
Source: 4Chan
A search for anti-immigrant terms along with Miller and Homan also saw spikes. Unsurprisingly, there was considerable support for Miller, who is known as the architect of the “family separation” policy during the first Trump administration, crafting the “anti-white racism” electoral strategy for the Trump campaign, and his ties to anti-immigrant groups and white nationalists.
4chan posters applauded Trump for placing Miller “in charge of the camps” because he “has the gumption to get it done.” An antisemitic poster was willing to overlook Miller being Jewish due to his hardline anti-immigrant stances, “Isn’t it backwards that Stephen Miller, a Jew, is the only one who seems to have the stomach to get his hands dirty and purge the country of shitskins? Actually, more and more Jews are realizing that countries without whites are uninhabitable…Miller was antimigrant YEARS before it was cool. I believe he wants these policies for the same reason good Americans do: He wants a successful America, and only a white majority can make America great.”
Homan, too, was a favorite. The former head of ICE in the first Trump administration, Homan carried out the notorious “zero tolerance” family separation policy. And he’s proud of it. When asked by a reporter whether it was possible to humanely deport immigrants without separating families, he responded, “Of course there is … families can be deported together.”
One 4chan user wrote that “Tom Homan is awesome, he is literally going to send the illegals to gitmo.” Another said, “You just deport families together? Tom Homan, everyone.Truly, this man is a genius.” Another post read, “Have you seen who the new border czar is? tom homan. he’s a fucking beast and has declared open war on cartels which are now considered terrorists organisations. and he + trump are already in the process of figuring out the logistics of mass deportations. Homan himself has come out and said he will deport entire families, he doesn’t care.”
It’s not just the neo-Nazis on 4chan who have been posting nasty anti-immigrant rhetoric. At times, Trump allies sound little different than those on 4chan. Mark Krikorian, who heads the Center of Immigration Studies (CIS), took to Twitter to suggest immigrants “self-deport” by Christmas.
Source: Twitter
Trump appointees and those reportedly on short lists for appointments, have also echoed this dangerous rhetoric.
Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), who is under consideration for a position in the incoming administration, once stated: “We’re going to deport a lot of people, 10 million people and growing. Anchor babies, their parents, their grandparents. We’re gonna put kids in cages. It’s gonna be glorious. We’re gonna detain a lot of people in the D.C. gulag and Gitmo.” Kristi Noem, who was recently appointed to be the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has expressed her support for Trump’s Muslim ban and Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s anti-immigrant efforts by offering to send more barbed wire for the Texas-Mexico border.
Rhetoric like this may well spill into real world violence. In 2016, after Trump’s first presidential win, hate crimes against Latinos exploded and have remained high ever since. The trend may accelerate now that white supremacists feel vindicated and emboldened by the election and Trump’s promised immigration crackdown.
