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The fractured elements of what was once called the alt-right were unified once more on Thursday night in condemning Donald Trumps airstrike in Syria as a mistake. Or as Milo Yiannopoulos put it, FAKE and GAY.

This loose confederation of Web-savvy, anti-establishment right-wingers formed an important vanguard of Trumps online support in last years election, and its unified opposition to the airstrike forewarns a political downside to intervention in Syria. While foreign wars tend to boost presidents popularity in the short term, Trump risks losing the segments of his base that flocked to his isolationist, America First message.

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In addition to its nationalist, anti-interventionist and anti-globalist views, the alt-right and its fellow travelers have also displayed a marked affinity for Syrias ally Russia, whose government has returned the love by tweeting images of the alt-right's mascot, Pepe the Frog, from official accounts. In reacting to the airstrikes, leaders of the movement placed those ideological reflexes over their personal loyalty to Trump.

Most noteworthy were the herculean efforts of blogger Mike Cernovich, who took to the livestreaming application Periscope to rally opposition to the strike in a marathon session that went on for several hours.

Just days after Donald Trump Jr. suggested he be given a Pulitzer Prize, Cernovich tweeted, Sources telling me U.S. attack in Syria planned for tonight, we must stop! #NoMoreWar, at 7:40 pm Eastern time, an hour and a half before NBC News broke the news of the airstrike.

During the course of the livestream Cernovich at times holding his infant daughter Cyra in his arms blamed a variety of actors for fomenting the conflict. They want war. Deep state, all these people want it, man, he said. Of the media, he said, Theyre trying to con Trump into believing the people want war.

Cernovich also expressed his belief that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad had been framed for the chemical attack, though he had not decided by whom. It was probably ISIS did it to themselves, he said on the livestream, while also tweeting, Did McCain give moderate rebels (ISIS) in Syria poison gas and Hollywood style film equipment?

Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, founder of pro-Trump Western chauvinist fraternal organization the Proud Boys, joined Cernovich as a guest via Skype, and shared his skepticism. To illustrate a parallel from his own life, McInnes recounted a story in which he said a female friend accused a man of rape and McInnes violently confronted the man, only to be convinced by the mans incredulous response that he was not guilty of rape. (In a text message, McInnes, who left Vice a decade ago, maintained his skepticism about the source of the chemical weapons attack but signaled support for Trumps response).

Earlier in the day, alt-right online philosopher Stefan Molyneux also joined Cernovich to condemn the action and question whether Assad was really responsible for the chemical weapons attack.

Other callers offered even more disturbing theories. One man expressed his concern that the deep state had approached Trump and threatened to kill him and his family if he did not get in line and voiced his suspicion that the whole thing could be traced back to Barack Obamas national security adviser, Susan Rice. Yeah, could be, responded Cernovich.

Others who have been associated with the alt-right were similarly dismayed by the news.

Yiannopoulos who has kept a low profile since losing a CPAC speaking gig and a six-figure book deal over revelations that he once spoke favorably of pederasty declined to elaborate on a text message describing the airstrike as FAKE and GAY.

White nationalist Richard Spencer, whose embrace of hard-core racism has led Yiannopoulos and others to distance themselves from the alt-right label, displayed no such reticence, calling the strike a sad, shocking and deeply frustrating moment.

I condemn the strikes, he said. Im going to wait and see. Perhaps Trump is slapping Assad across the nose and wont go further. Perhaps Russia was informed of the attacks. Worst-case scenario: Were replaying the 2000s: A conservative comes to office on a populist message and becomes a globalist and neocon shill. Again, Ill wait and see but Im prepared to denounce Trump."

Spencer was not alone in vacillating between condemnations of the strike and expressing hope that Trump will not take further action against Assad. The anonymous alt-right Twitter troll Ricky Vaughn tweeted, THERE IS NO ENDGAME IN SYRIA if we remove Assad. No leader that can hold together that country. He also tweeted, Hoping this is 88D chess giving Trump political space and an excuse for meeting with and negotiating with Putin.

Over on The_Donald subreddit, a central hangout for Trumps alt-right fans, debate raged all night. One poster attempted to douse the discontent by writing, Calm the fuck down all you concern trolls. This isnt WWW3 - its trump putting America first. We need to stop Assad from killing his people. They flee and guess where they are going? The /pol/ section of the message board site 4Chan, another hotbed of online Trump support, was similarly torn asunder by the news, with one poster writing, /pol/ hates Trump now. What happened?

Meanwhile, internet troll Charles Johnson was not prepared to accept that the U.S. really had struck at Assad, saying that a source at CENTCOM told him the strike had actually targeted the Islamic State. Im very skeptical of any claims made in the media on military matters, he said. Especially since the Iraq War.

Ben Schreckinger is a reporter for Politico.

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Trump's Troll Army Isn't Ready for War in Syria - POLITICO Magazine - POLITICO Magazine

Cosmetics giant apologises for Facebook adafter it was incorporated in memes by 'alt-right' trolls online

COSMETICS giantNivea has apologised for an deodorant advert with the slogan White is purity after it was branded racist.

The Facebook ad was quickly adopted by far-rightgroups who shared it on social media along with pictures of Hitler and Pepe the Frog.

Facebook

Twitter

The ad for Nivea Invisible Black & White deodorant was aimed at Facebook followers in the Middle East.

It featured a dark-haired woman wearing white andwas posted alongside the caption: Keep it clean, keep it bright. Dont let anything ruin it.

The German company, which is liked by 19million Facebook users, removed the post following complaints.

One Twitter user said: Not cool at all. #Racism is not a good marketing strategy.

The ad also became popular with far-right groups online and was incorporated in a number of disturbing memes alongside Adolf Hitler.

Another image used the cartoon character Pepe the Frog designated a hate symbol by the US Anti-Defamation League with a caption saying: Is Nivea, dare I say, /ourguy/?

Another far-right account Tweeted: #Nivea: the official moisturizer/anti-perspirant of the #AltRight.

And another sicko said: Cant fight immigrants with sweat stains. Race war 2020 sponsored by Nivea.

Twitter

Twitter

Niveas owners Beiersdorf said:We are deeply sorry to anyone who may take offence to this specific post. After realising that the post is misleading, it was immediately withdrawn.

Diversity and equal opportunity are crucial values of NIVEA. The brand represents diversity, tolerance, and equal opportunity.

Direct or indirect discrimination must be ruled out in all decisions by, and in all areas of our activities.

In 2011 Nivea was criticised for a magazine ad featuring a black man apparently holding asevered head, with the slogan Re-civilize yourself.

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Nivea removes 'white is purity' deodorant advert after it was branded 'racist' and the company was trolled with ... - The Sun

With the growth of the Alt-Right, Michael Richardson discusses the political influence of memes.

THAT moment when memes forego scrutiny.

Memes have developed in recent years to become an influential and mainstream medium. However, they have for the most part been responded to in a way that is passive and uncritical. Their power and influence is not widely acknowledged. Many define memes by their silliness and disregard the entire medium. However, this is not the whole truth. The reality is that we are living in a world where memes are a useful tool in the game of politics.

A meme is a virally-transmitted cultural symbol or idea. They usually take the form of captioned images that are intended to be funny. In 2016, many of the most popular memes were focused on the US presidential elections and the rise of Donald Trump.

The funny imagery of memes becomes potent when they carry a message. While there are no statistics for the number of people whose political views are informed by viral images that, for example, depict refugees as terrorists, the numbers of likes and shares suggest that the effect is significant.

The viral nature of memes has been exploited by various internet fringes and they have been transformed into political tools.

Over the last year, the viral nature of memes has been exploited by various internet fringes and they have been transformed into political tools. Meme magic is a term that originated on 4Chan, referring to memes that rise from the internet to have real-life consequences. To quote the message of one user on the website, We actually elected a meme as president.

Although it seems a ridiculous notion to suggest that Trump was carried to victory on the shoulders of millions of slick meme-imbibers, it is certainly true that they played a part. The lefts mockery of Trump through memes gave him a great deal of attention at the start of his campaign, and when the right responded with their own memes, what will go down in history as The Great Meme War began. By regarding Pepe the Frog as a hate symbol, the Anti-Defamation League acknowledged the power of memes. The events of 2016 transformed memes into a valid political weapon.

The fighters in the Great Meme War engineered Pro-Trump and anti-Clinton memes to gain as much mainstream traction as possible. They used platforms like Reddit and networks of fake accounts on Twitter to push the memes in front of as many viewers as possible. Users of 4Chan believe their efforts memed Trumps presidency from a far-fetched fantasy to reality.

Although the lifecycle of many memes begins and ends within the forums that create them, that does not render their effects void. This is often the case with 4Chan, which has always had an outsider bent. During the early 2000s, vehemently anti-George W. Bush, it became a hub for 9/11 truthers and for trolling religious conservatives. The leftist hacking collective Anonymous group was born from these Bush-era boards.

The boards also developed a culture of hard-core racist language; bigotry at first motivated by a desire to get a rise out of normies, but eventually fostering an environment where genuine racists felt at home. Former users have spoken out about how they were radicalised by the forums, how engaging with hatred and misogyny quickly made them more racist and misogynistic: like Pepe the Frogs boiling alive in slowly heating water. This may explain its support for a destructive outsider like Trump. This radicalisation of the vulnerable has effects in the political world.

By regarding Pepe the Frog as a hate symbol, the Anti-Defamation League acknowledged the power of memes.

Perhaps 4Chan users overstate their influence on the election, and Trumps victory is in a correlative, rather than a causal relation to their efforts. However, one should keep in mind that a guiding force in Trumps campaign was Steve Bannon, who brought a great deal of knowledge about the power of internet subculture from Breitbart News.

Former officials with the Trump campaign even reported that a team dedicated to monitoring social media trends were in contact with prominent users of r/The_Donald subreddit, a conduit from 4Chan to the mainstream internet. Trump encouraged the culture, at one point even sharing on Twitter an image of a Trump-like Pepe the Frog positioned behind a presidential lectern.

The medias handling of memes has also been premature. By taking ironic memes too seriously, and declaring Pepe a white supremacist symbol, alt-right meme-creators were granted legitimacy. They were also given something to laugh about, inciting a storm of #NotAllPepes in response. The premature response gave memes an undeserved status, and the trolls won.

Memes have become an influential political presence that has real-world consequences, but the deep-seated irony and destructive, outsider impulse makes them a difficult force to grapple with. Treat them too seriously and the internet responds with laughter. The media must discover an effective way to fight the influence of memes, so that the trolls do not win.

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Attack of the Memes - University Observer Online

A Donald Trump supporter holding a poster of Pepe the Frog, a symbol of the alt-right movement, at a campaign event in Bedford, N.H., Sept. 29, 2016. (Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

(JTA) What does the alt-right movement have in common with millennial slang words such as smackdown, slay and man bun?

Turns out they are all among the more than300 words or terms added to Dictionary.com.

The online dictionary, which announced the additions on Thursday, defines alt-right as a political movement originating on social media and online forums, composed of a segment of conservatives who support extreme right-wing ideologies, including white nationalism and anti-Semitism (often used attributively).

It lists the word as having been coined in 2010 by Richard Spencer, a prominent white nationalist, and as being a shortened version of the words alternative and right.

Spencer, a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, has used a Nazi term Lgenpresse, or lying press to describe the mainstream media, and suggested that the media have been critical of Trump in order to protect Jewish interests.

Other politics-related words and phrases added to Dictionary.com include Black Lives Matter, an activist movement protesting violence and racism against African-Americans; burkini, the full-coverage Islamic bathing suit that was at the center of a controversial ban in France, and clicktivism, the use of social media to express support for various causes.

Dictionary.com isnt the only word reference tool that lists alt-right.The phrase was on the Oxford Dictionarys shortlist for top words in 2016, although ultimately post-truth was declared the international word of the year.

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'Alt-right' added as official term on Dictionary.com - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Venezuelas socialist government stripped its congress of power late Thursday in what opposition leaders are calling a coup.

Venezuelas Supreme Court ruled that all powers vested under the legislative body will be transferred to the countrys highest court. Venezuelas opposition legislators are calling this a coup, as the ruling effectively cedes total control of the country to the SocialistParty, and opposition leaders are now officially calling Venezuelaa dictatorship.

Nicols Maduro has staged a coup dtat, Julio Borges, leader of Venezuelas National Assembly and a major opposition figure, said Thursday. What this ruling means is that, for the first time, Nicols Maduro has all the power to enact laws, assign contracts, incur foreign debt and persecute fellow Venezuelans.

The Peruvian government broke off diplomatic relations with Venezuela over theruling, calling it an arbitrary measure that disrupts the rule of law and constitutes a breakup of the constitutional and democratic order.

Since the socialist government seized power, 75 percent of Venezuelas citizens have lost at least 19 pounds each amid serious food shortages last year, according to new research.This is largely because the poor economic policies of the socialist government have left Venezuela cash-strapped and unable topay for food importsafter years of mismanagement, heavy spending on poorly-run government programs, and lack of investment on its oil fields.

The countrys inflation rate is expected to top 1,640 percent in 2017, according to the International Monetary Fund. Inflation is leading to the countrys currency getting replaced by new cryptocurrency backed by memes of Pepe the Frog. Using these memes as moneygrants anonymity,making itharder for the government to control the tech industry. Others have noticed and started using digital money in place of paper money.

Venezuelans are living with the consequences of decades of socialist economic policies. Price controls, for example, forced businesses to sell food at low prices, encouraging farmers to sell on the black market or outside the country.

Venezuela has some of the worlds largest petroleum reserves, but the collapse in crude oil prices is cutting into state coffers. The country cant afford to pump oil at current prices, and as recently as February was forced to accept shipments of U.S. crude oil. The country suffers from rolling blackouts that can last for days.

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Venezuela Dissolves Only Non-Socialist Part Of Its Government - Daily Caller