In early July, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump tweeted an image of his Democratic counterpart Hillary Clinton. What distinguished this particular post, and outraged many, was its brazen anti-Semitism: The graphic showed Clinton's face over a pile of money, accompanied by an unmistakable Star of David emblazoned with the words "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!"
Trump's campaign team subsequently deleted the post and replaced it with a modified version with a circle instead of a star. They remained adamant the tweet showed a "sheriff's badge," not the Jewish symbol closely associated with the Holocaust after Nazis forced Jewish prisoners to wear it on their sleeves.
As Mic originally reported, before the image made its appearance on Trump's Twitter, it wove its way through multiple online venues tied to the ideology of white supremacy. One of the venues where the image found a happy home was Holla Forums, aka "Politically Incorrect," one of the many message boards found on internet free-speech haven Holla Forums.
Holla Forums's Holla Forums is one of the nexuses of the alternative right, the collective digital presence of an edgy new conservative movement. The alt-right is young and internet savvy. In spaces like Holla Forums's Holla Forums, young internet trolls break bread with earnest anti-Semitic white supremacists. They denounce political correctness, immigration and cultural diversity while sharing "cuck" memes to mock the establishment.
Almost unanimously, this group supports Trump.
To understand Holla Forums, you have to understand the culture of a "chan" — a variety of mostly anonymous message boards originally popularized by the Japanese site 2channel.
Chans are image boards, rather than the static web forums that became the standard in the United States following the BBS and UseNet boom of the 1980s to late 1990s. One feature of a static message board is that users generally have to register an account to post, and their activity can be tracked throughout the forum's history. Their messages may live on forever. Moreover, these message boards often have moderators who police racist language or abuse.