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A new far-right group stepped out in the United States this fall and its driving pro-Trump right-wingers crazy. The groypers are potential successors to the alt-right, but their aim is not to bolster Trumpism so much as to replace it with an even more radical and openly anti-Semitic form of white nationalism.

Turning Point USA, a popular student group headed by Charlie Kirk that supports U.S. President Donald Trump, came under attack this fall as Kirks Culture War college tour was treated to a series of high-profile disruptions by the groypers.

Led by 21-year-old YouTuber Nicholas Fuentes, an associate of infamous white nationalist (and self-described racial identitarian) Richard Spencer, the groypers made national headlines this month for heckling Donald Trump Jr. at an event at UCLA. That resulted in Trump Jr. and former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle leaving the stage after attempting to shout down the crowd.

Weeks before the event, the Zionist Organization of America called on Twitter to ban Fuentes for using the analogy of Cookie Monster baking batches of cookies to attempt to deny the horrific murder of 6 million innocent Jews during the Holocaust during a podcast he hosts.

Fuentes group, apparently named for a cartoon frog similar to alt-right symbol Pepe the Frog, has harassed pro-Trump speakers from popular conservative commentator and Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro to Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw to David Rubin, a host for the conservative pay television network BlazeTV.

At the events they disrupt, the groypers ask speakers leading questions about Israel, gay rights and immigration to force them to defend universal rights thereby revealing them as fake conservatives.

Kirk, like Crenshaw and other speakers targeted by the groypers, are staunch defenders of Trump and often push the same kind of rhetoric as the president. Crenshaw and Kirk both regularly attack the so-called deep state and the impeachment hoax, but denounce the overt racism of the groypers.

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Voxs Jane Coaston, one of the preeminent journalists covering the American right today, notes that thegroyper army is simply the alt-right of 2016 and 2017, warmed over, reenergized and using new terminology aimed at disassociating itself from the optics problem of the deadly August 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right Rally which, not coincidentally, Fuentes attended.

The alt-right a far-right, white nationalist movement in the United States that grabbed attention early in Trumps presidency has lost steam in recent years as many of its leaders have been largely discredited and exiled from the American right wing. From Spencer to Milo Yiannopoulos to Gavin McInnes of the men-only, misogynist organization Proud Boys, the movements most vocal proponents are now rarely given media platforms.

The size and scope of the groyper army is not well documented, nor is its online reach. However, it has disrupted events from Tennessee to Los Angeles and appears to be gaining steam ahead of the 2020 presidential election campaign.

The groypers also ask questions using a variety of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to elicit reactions from the speakers they target. These questions include asking about Israeli domestic surveillance equipment at the White House and the dancing Israelis conspiracy theory, which claims that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks as evidenced by five Israeli nationals dancing in celebration as the Twin Towers burned.

Another common question asked by group members is about the USS Liberty, a U.S. spy ship that Israel sank in the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967 after it misidentified it as an Egyptian vessel, killing 34 American sailors. The incident has become an anti-Semitic dog whistle used by the groypers to ask how support for Israel puts America First and to raise doubt over the U.S.-Israel alliance. When a groyper posed this question to Kirk when he was onstage with Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle at UCLA, Kirk denounced the conspiracy theory which alleges Israel deliberately targeted the U.S. vessel and ended up launching into a vehement defense of Israel.

VoxsCoaston quotes the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer websiteas urging the groypers: When you get pulled out [by security], yell GOOGLE THE USS LIBERTY or GOOGLE DANCING ISRAELIS or AMERICA FIRST NOT ISRAEL FIRST or just NICK FUENTES.

While still very much on the fringe of the American right, Fuentes has found some mainstream support in well-known conservative pundit Michelle Malkin.

Malkin spent a decade churning out New York Times best-sellers, had a nationally syndicated newspaper column and is a regular on cable news. Shewas fired from the Young America's Foundation last week for supporting the groyper leader.

Her former employer is a conservative youth group whose events were also targeted by the groypers.

After YAF issued a statement upon her termination, saying that There is no room in mainstream conservatism or at YAF for Holocaust deniers, white nationalists, street brawlers, or racists, Malkin who has praised Fuentes as a New Right leader doubled down on Twitter in response to YAF. The Keepers of the Gate have spoken. #AmericaFirst is not mainstream. My defense of unjustly prosecuted Proud Boys, patriotic young nationalists/groypers & demographic truth-tellers must not be tolerated. SPLC is cheering, she wrote, referring to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Malkins tweet echoes the groypers sentiment that they and not the mainstream are the true voice of Trumps America First agenda.

In mid-November, the groyper army targeted TPUSA events featuringrising GOP star Crenshaw at Arizona State and the University of Texas at Austin. The latter event saw groypers being escorted out of the auditorium after Crenshaw declared that he sections off any anger about anti-whiteness and was shouted down by an audience member who said: We are mad because Israel, its prime minister, said 9/11 was good for Israel.

Crenshaw has since slammed the groypers, repeatedly calling them the alt-right 2.0.

After conservative Daily Wire writer Matt Walsh tussled with a groyper at LA'S California State University in early November, Crenshaw came to his defense. The groyper had asked Walsh how he justified working for a non-Christian meaning Shapiro, the Daily Wires editor-in-chief. Wait, youre telling me that my Jewish boss doesnt believe that Jesus is the son of God? Walsh asked sarcastically. My god, Im scandalized by this! I had no idea.

In response to the incident, Crenshaw tweeted: Matt is correct. They use slogans like America first to get conservatives to sympathize with them. But after personally dealing with them, its pretty obvious they are vehement racists, anti-semites & ethnic-nationalists. Conservatives need to know the difference. Malkin then blocked Crenshaw on Twitter.

Walsh had responded to Malkin in a tweet, writing, Hi @michellemalkin. Fuentes called me a race traitor and f*ggot because I work for Jews. He also said that black people who complained about segregation needed to grow up. How do you feel about these statements? And in what way are they America First?

Many of the conservative speakers the groypers have targeted are Jewish including Shapiro, Rubin and Jonah Goldberg, a former editor for the National Review. Fuentes had previously personally targeted Rubin on his YouTube channel: You want to talk to Jewy Jewstein? Fuentes said. Im David Rubin and this is the gay Jewish show. Today weve got a Jew.

At a speech at Stanford University last week, Shapiro ripped into Fuentes, calling him a garbage human being and obviously white supremacist garbage.

Some call themselves America First to hijack President Trumps slogans to give themselves a patina of credibility youre seeing them adopt the beliefs of some of these other movements in order to find cover for their own vile belief system, Shapiro said.

While Shapiro has been a vocal critic of this new movement and of the alt-right, he has also given credence to many of the arguments that bolster the far right in the United States. Shapiro recently argued in response to an Atlantic cover story on how to avoid another American Civil War that Democrats are using demographic change to force an ideological change in the United States a notion similar to the white genocide conspiracy popular with the far right.

One thing the groypers and the alt-right movement have in common is that both have made Shapiro their worst enemy. A study by the Anti-Defamation League found that Shapiro was the number one target of the alt-right in 2016 and it seems he will be for the groypers in 2020.

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Trump, Israel and anti-Semitism: How white nationalists are rattling the American right - Haaretz

Pepe the Frog is getting an image makeover this summer.

The cartoon frog with the bulging eyes and wide smile has, for years, been associated with America's alt-right a symbol of racism and hate as the country continues to grow more divided. In 2016, Pepe the Frog was officially listed as a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League, as the character gained prominence on sites like 4chan and became increasingly associated with anti-Semitism and bigotry.

Matt Furie, the artist behind Pepe the Frog, went so far as to "kill off" his creation in a 2017 comic strip, in an attempt to rebuke the far-right's transformation of the character. In a Time magazine essay, Furie wrote that "a once peaceful frog-dude from my comic book," was morphed by racists and anti-Semites into "an icon of hate." He concluded the essay arguing that "I, the creator, say that Pepe is love."

A pro-Trump protestor carries a Pepe the Frog sign during a protest at University of California-Berkeley in April 2017. Josh Edelson/Getty Images

In Hong Kong, however, protesters have another idea of what Pepe the Frog represents: for them, he is a pro-democracy freedom fighter siding with the masses as they take on mainland China a vastly different identity compared to what the character is viewed as by many across the Pacific.

A New York Times article published on Monday explored that question, with reporter Daniel Victor suggesting that many protesters "had no idea about the symbol's racist connotations elsewhere in the world. They just like him." He added that, at least online, when Hong Kongers do discuss the negative connotations surrounding the character, they largely shrug it off.

"Different countries have very different cultures," suggested 20-year-old Hong Konger Emily Yeung, in an interview with Victor. "Symbols and colors that mean something in one culture can mean something completely different in another culture, so I think if Americans are really offended by this, we should explain to them what it means to us."

As the Hong Kong protests picked up this summer, Pepe the Frog became a common symbol across the city his face emblazoned on stickers, walls, backpacks, and within the abyss of social media. He was directly on the front linewith protesters, sympathetic to their struggles and devoted to their cause. In a Reddit thread titled "Take Pepe back!" a user wrote "In Hong Kong Pepe is not at all associated with Trump... the original artist didn't want Pepe to be used like that. So let's try to make baby steps."

Hongkonger Paper Chu told the South China Morning Post that she "originally liked [Pepe] for his irreverence, which feels very in sync with the attitude of the Hong Kong people. But having him as part of the anti-extradition movement, as the face of it, feels appropriate."

That's a sentiment felt across the board, it seems: as one person wrote on LIHKG, an anonymous messaging board for protesters, "it has nothing to do with the far-right ideology in the state... it just looks funny and captures the hearts of so many youngsters. It is a symbol of youth participation in this movement," according to a Times translation of the forum.

Mari Law, a 33-year-old protester, told the New York Times that similar to the hundreds of thousands of them who continue to take to the streets demanding greater democracy and government accountability, the cartoon frog is just sad.

The protesters want change, and they want the Chinese government to take their demands seriously.

Pepe the Frog, the character who for years has been aligned with the far-right and anti-Semitism, may, in their minds, be just the "frog-dude" to keep that dream alive.

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Pepe the Frog, an alt-right symbol in the US, has emerged ...

Pepe the Frog is a cartoon character that has become a popular Internet meme (often referred to as the "sad frog meme" by people unfamiliar with the name of the character). The character first appeared in 2005 in the on-line cartoon Boy's Club. In that appearance, the character also first used its catchphrase, "feels good, man."

The Pepe the Frog character did not originally have racist or anti-Semitic connotations. Internet users appropriated the character and turned him into a meme, placing the frog in a variety of circumstances and saying many different things. Many variations of the meme became rather esoteric, resulting in the phenomenon of so-called "rare Pepes."

The majority of uses of Pepe the Frog have been, and continue to be, non-bigoted. However, it was inevitable that, as the meme proliferated in on-line venues such as 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit, which have many users who delight in creating racist memes and imagery, a subset of Pepe memes would come into existence that centered on racist, anti-Semitic or other bigoted themes.

In recent years, with the growth of the "alt right" segment of the white supremacist movement, a segment that draws some of its support from some of the above-mentioned Internet sites, the number of "alt right" Pepe memes has grown, a tendency exacerbated by the controversial and contentious 2016 presidential election. Though Pepe memes have many defenders, the use of racist and bigoted versions of Pepe memes seems to be increasing, not decreasing.

However, because so many Pepe the Frog memes are not bigoted in nature, it is important to examine use of the meme only in context. The mere fact of posting a Pepe meme does not mean that someone is racist or white supremacist. However, if the meme itself is racist or anti-Semitic in nature, or if it appears in a context containing bigoted or offensive language or symbols, then it may have been used for hateful purposes.

In the fall of 2016, the ADL teamed with Pepe creator Matt Furie to form a #SavePepe campaign to reclaim the symbol from those who use it with hateful intentions.

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Pepe the Frog - Anti-Defamation League

Pepe the Frog, a fictional amphibian both beloved and abhorred by Americans of varying political persuasions,has died. Drawn into creation in 2005,he passed away tragically at the hands of his creator, artist Matt Furie, on Saturday.

Birthed in Microsoft Paint, and printed at a local Kinkos shortly after, he has been described by those who knew him personally as chill, peaceful and often stoned. Yet by his time of death,the Boys Club zine star was virtually unrecognizable. Hed, unfortunately, become a darling symbol of the alt-right.

Pepe had a happy upbringing. He spent his early 20s in frog years, that is doing what he loved: chugging pop, snarfing pizza and getting high with his roommates Andy, Brett and Landwolf. Furie gave him a simple life full of simple pleasures, like surfing the web for sick videos and eating so much you barf it all back up. For a few years, at least.

Things got complicated, however, in a seemingly fleeting moment that would prove to be fatal. One day, Pepes roommate caught the frog in a compromising position:peeing, with his pants dropped all the way down to his ankles. His entire butt was exposed, for no reason. It was weird. When Landwolf called Pepe out for it, Pepe responded: Feels good man. The altercation, memorialized in zine, would forever alter the course of Pepes life.

In 2008, a cartoon depicting Pepes smarmy feels good man smile popped up on the message board 4chan. There was something contagious about Pepes indulgent joie de vivre that made internet users share the image again and again and again. It soon went viral,gaining particular traction in, of all places, a bodybuilding forum.

That year, Pepe went from mere image to meme a humorous cultural touchstone, that, like a human gene, could mutate and replicate in strange ways.The more popular a meme Pepe became, the more he began to change, adopting alternate personas like Batman Pepe, Nu Pepe and Borat Pepe, which spread wildly across Reddit, Tumblr, Facebook and Instagram. Each iteration featured the frogs classic mug, his unctuous expression warped this way and that to appear sleepy, dazed, sad and angry.

Pepes internet acclaim continued to grow. Katy Perry shareda bleary-eyed and crying Pepe in 2014, along with the caption Australian jet lag got me like. Nicki Minaj followed suit, posting an image of Pepe showing off his juicy behind in a pair of tight, peach-colored booty shorts.

Ive realized that Pepe is beyond my control, artist Furie told New York Magazine in 2016. Hes like a kid, he grew up and now I have to set him free to live his life. Its all good.

JOSH EDELSON via Getty Images

Pepes future was irreparably thrown off course a year before that, when, in 2015, an online community of white nationalists developed a soft spot for Pepes droopy eyelids and self-satisfied smirk. The dark pockets of the internet launched a campaign to adopt Pepe as their own personal symbol, using the cartoons absurd and somewhat adorable aesthetic to make hateful messages appear playful and benign.

In 2015 and 2016, very different versions of Pepe began proliferating online: Pepe readingMein Kampf, Pepesipping from a swastika teacup, an anti-Semitic caricature of Pepe hinting at his involvementin the Sept. 11 attacks. In style, the green critter still resembled a harmless joke, a stoner cartoon meant to elicit a blazed chuckle or two.Yet Pepes zany cuteness now served to make palatable grossly discriminatory views. As Emily Nussbaum put it: The joke protected the non-joke.

The goal of Pepes makeover, as alt-right internet user @JaredTSwift explained to Olivia Nuzziin 2016, was to use the unassuming frog to usher white nationalism into the mainstream. And it worked. People have adopted our rhetoric, sometimes without even realizing it, Swift said. Were setting up for a massive cultural shift. Pretty soon, Pepe the racist and antisemitic frog far out-shined Pepe the stoner frog in visibility and recognition.Few remembered his glory days as a Boys Club bro, instead understanding Pepe to be the creation of spiteful internet trolls.

During the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump and Pepe forged an unlikely alliance when a Trump-esque Pepe adaptation, complete with yellow floppy hair, appeared to bepolicing the U.S. Mexican border and operating a gas chamber. To most of the internet, Pepe was now synonymous with hate, bigotry and Trump.Some even credit the frog with helping Trump win the election.(According to Furie, Pepe would not be the type to even vote.)

Pepe madness reached a surreal peak in September 2016, when the Anti-Defamation Leaguedeclared Pepe an official hate symbol, much to Furies confusion and disappointment. In my mind, frogs are one of the most peaceful creatures, he told HuffPost. They just chill on lily pads and eat. You never really feel threatened by frogs in nature. I think thats why theyre so popular in fairy-tales. Theyre just ... chill.

Furie did his best to alter Pepes fate, spearheading a social media campaign to#SavePepe.The artist also began to speak out, post-Pepe, against anti-Semitism and online hate at conferences and panels hosted by the ADL. He also collaborated with Save the Frogs!on a line of Pepe-centric goods,with all proceeds benefitting a wildlife organization devoted to protecting endangered frog species.

The artist made a valiant effort to protect Pepe from the garbage forces of the internet. But alas, something about Pepe had changed. And on May 6, 2017, Furie made the executive decision to say goodbye to his little green friend for good. He drew Pepe into death, featuring the frog in an open casket, his buddies toasting him farewell with a bottle of whiskey, which they then proceeded to spill on his face. Furie created the single-page comic for Fantagraphics Worlds Greatest Comics, sordidly markingFree Comic Book Day.

Pepes life was a strange one, perhaps even the first of its kind. While no artwork is immune to possible interpretations that diverge from the artists intention, few images have taken as long, winding and bizarre a journey as little Pepe.

Born a humble character in a cult stoner zine, the benevolent frog was forever altered by internet fame. When Pepe died, he left this world a nationally recognized symbol for white supremacy. Who controls an image? Who can verify its true meaning? A cute, mellow frog became a harbinger of fascism, in part because the whole progression was too weird and kind of funny to take seriously. Kind of like the story of Trump himself.

Now, we believe, Pepe is in a better place. Hopefully hes living the dream: drinking pop with one hand and helping to pee it out with the other.Fare thee well, sweet Pepe. You were too chill for this world. May you rest without fear of being appropriated by trolls for all of eternity.

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An Obituary For The Painfully Misunderstood Pepe The Frog ...

Folsom Lake College notified the local police after finding a poster of a cartoon frog, stating that hate has no home on our campus.

An FLC faculty member found the sheet featuring Pepe the frog on their office door earlier in February. The school informed the Los Rios, California Police Department about the incident so it would be on heightened alert for any signs that this may be part of a larger trend or pattern, according to an email sent to the school community and obtained by Campus Reform.

The picture of the smirking frog appeared alongside other posters pertaining to fascist dog whistles, Democratic Socialists of America, and a week of social justice events.

FLC President Whitney Yamamura, Academic Senate President Paula Haug, Classified Senate President Lindsey Campbell, and Student Senate President Cameron Sanders co-authored the email to the campus community.

[Pepe] has been commonly co-opted by white supremacists and others as a symbol of bigotry, Yamamura and the co-authors said in the email. While we do not immediately know the intentions of the person(s) who posted the picture, we are treating this incident with the highest level of seriousness and have already conducted a sweep of all Folsom Lake College campuses to look for other instances of these materials.

Internet users have edited Pepe the frog to resemble people and creatures varying from President Donald Trump to a unicorn. In May 2016, Twitter trolls tricked a journalist for The Daily Beast into writing a piece claiming that individuals had met up for drinks and plotted morphing the over decade-old meme into a symbol for white nationalism, according to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Nearly three years later, in their email about an unedited Pepe appearing on campus, Yamamura and the co-authors added that every person on campus should have a place to study and work that is free of bigotry and discrimination. In order to accomplish that goal, the FLC president and co-authors of the email encouraged students to report any additional paraphernalia of a hateful or bigoted nature to staff or faculty. In the statement, Yamamura also provided an email and personal phone number to the colleges Equity Officer.

The college president and the other campus leaders also discussed the importance of providing a safe environment for students, staff, and faculty, but at the same time preserving students right to free speech.

We believe that we can create an environment free of hateful language or symbols while still supporting the rights afforded to us in the First Amendment, the co-authors of the email said. Folsom Lake College has always been, and must continue to be, a place for collegial and mature conversation about complex issues. As a college, we are committed to providing a safe and inclusive learning and working environment, as demonstrated from our ongoing professional development workshops and trainings related to equity and inclusion.

Campus Reform contacted several faculty members at Folsom Lake College multiple times for comment but received no response in time for publication. Campus Reform also reached out to the Queer-Straight Alliance group on campus, but the group declined to make a statement.

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Calif. College Calls the POLICE Over Pepe the Frog