After Donald Trump’s presidential victory, there was euphoria among the denizens of Trumpland, the loose coalition of online provocateurs trolls and media personalities who helped him into the Oval Office. They had an amazing honeymoon period full of Pepe memes and “Build the Wall” chants.
But now it seems the vacation is over.
Members of the “new right” (the populist, anti-immigration, anti-interventionist, vociferously pro-Trump movement) are not happy at all with Trump’s intervention into Syria Thursday night. After promising to keep the country out of war and lampooning the Bush administration for their follies in Iraq, the Trump administration ordered an airstrike on a Syrian government airbase in response to a gas attack on civilians and children by President Bashar al-Assad. The language in Trump’s address seemed to imply this was only the beginning of a larger intervention.
Many of these New Right leaders, with huge influence on social media, would often make the argument that a vote for Hillary was a vote for war. Well, now it seems war was almost inevitable and these new media stars are angry.
Paul Joseph Watson, the British YouTuber and InfoWars disciple, had strong words about the Syrian intervention. On Thursday night, he claimed on Twitter he was leaving Trump and moving on to Marine Le Pen, the far-right nationalist French presidential candidate, and even called Trump a “deepstate/neocon puppet.” Today he apparently sobered up and says he is only “off the Trump train in terms of Syria.” He called any effort from the media to say he left Trump “fake news.”
Milo Yiannopoulos, the rightwing provocateur and former Breitbart editor, made a statement on Facebook about the Syria strikes. “There comes a day in every child’s life when his Daddy bitterly disappoints him,” he said referring to Trump.
Mike Cernovich—Gorilla Mindset pioneer, lawyer, Pizzagater and Twitter gadfly—did an eight-hour livestream on YouTube to discuss the Syria situation. Before the US strike, Watson, Cernovich and others had claimed Assad’s chemical weapons attack on civilians was a “false flag.” Cernovich theorized the gas attack was made by ISIS (with the help of the deepstate, or careerists in the government) to draw Trump into Syria against Assad. Cernovich had been pleading with Trump online not to take the bait.
This conflict can be summed up in a cartoon by Ben Garrison, another pro-Trump outsider and political cartoonist. The cartoon depicts Rand Paul as the voice of reason with John McCain and other neocons as the devil.
Cernovich appears to be willing to forgive Trump, as the false flag operation played on his better nature (the love of innocent children).
Canadian New Right provocateur Lauren Southern’s stream was much shorter, just her drinking wine, lamenting the war and reading tweets. She named it the “black pill stream,” after an ideology of pure nihilism and defeatism.
However, not all of the New Right was against the airstrike.
Gavin McInnes, the shockjock and ousted Vice founder, didn’t see what the big deal was.
“I don’t get why all my friends are mad at [Donald Trump],” McInnes wrote on Twitter. “He’s not deposing Assad or starting a war. He’s slapping some wrists.”
Tomi Lahren, the former Blaze anchor and conservative Barbie, is getting the most shit for her pro-intervention stance.
The other new right e-celebs like Southern, are firing back at Lahren’s comments.
Syria is now the greatest source of division and infighting in this once merry band of Trumpeters. The people who glommed on to Trump during the election are still fiercely ideological and attached to the principles of the new right. As Trump adopts more positions aligning him with their hate neoconservative foe, who knows how long the cohesion can last.