Supporters of Nick Fuentes wait to hear him speak in Detroit this June.Adam J. Dewey/NurPhoto/AP

Nick Fuentes is a white supremacist, an antisemite, a misogynist, and a lunkish weirdo so radioactive that even the Trump campaign doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. Earlier this summer Fuentes, 26, exercised his growing disenchantment with Trump by rallying his fanbase of similarly trollish and aggrieved young men, the so-called “groypers,” to do his will against the campaign.

New research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that studies online extremism, shows how Fuentes mounted what he called a “groyper war” against the Trump campaign on Twitter and TruthSocial. “The tactics Fuentes and his fans used were pretty crude,” says Jared Holt, a senior researcher at ISD studying hate and extremism. But “more serious actors” seeking to sway the election, he adds, including “countries that would seek to influence political discourse in the US for their own agendas may well look at this and see a bit of a blueprint.”

Fuentes’ attempt to push X posts despite policies barring manipulation could encourage more sophisticated players.

Fuentes is among a group of far-right figures, including Candace Owens and Laura Loomer, who have argued that the Trump campaign needs to take a more extreme stance on immigration. That was one demand of this social media campaign, alongside extracting a commitment from Trump to not go to war with Iran, an extension of........

© Mother Jones