“Pro-Trump trolls forced Speaker Ryan to bend the knee,” the Twitter provocateur known as Microchip told POLITICO after the statement from Ryan's office was published. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images Pro-Trump tweeters take credit for pressuring Ryan Using fake quotes, the president's social-media backers sent out memes suggesting the House speaker supported 'antifa' anarchists.

Pro-Trump Twitter trolls are taking credit for forcing House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office to deliver a sharply worded statement denouncing anti-fascist “antifa” anarchists as “left-wing thugs.”

The Trump supporters on Twitter, who were infuriated by Ryan’s failure to endorse Trump’s view that “both sides” at the Charlottesville rally were to blame for violence, spread a meme with a fabricated quote indicating that Ryan sided with the loose collection of anarchists, who have become a favored punching bag for the right.


“Pro-Trump trolls forced Speaker Ryan to bend the knee,” the Twitter provocateur known as Microchip told POLITICO after the statement from Ryan's office was published.

On Monday, a spoof antifa Twitter account — @CambridgeAntifa — tweeted a collage of rioters and flag-burners dressed in all-black and masks. Superimposed, alongside an unblinking Paul Ryan, was a quote attributed to the speaker: “Do I agree with all of Antifa’s tactics? No. Of course not. But I agree with their core values. Antifa stands for the greater global good. And so do I.”

The endorsement was not real, of course, and fact-checkers quickly debunked the meme. But it took off on social media, particularly after actor James Woods, a loud-and-proud Trump supporter, tweeted it out.

Meanwhile back at the asylum... pic.twitter.com/4GmYVnjdYz — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 29, 2017

His post was retweeted more than 9,000 times, particularly by members of the pro-Trump “rooms” mapped by POLITICO. Paul Nehlen, who seeks to challenge Ryan for his seat, shared Woods’ post to the tune of 200 retweets. The meme splintered into variants that made their way onto far-right blogs, reddit and 4chan.

Ryan's press secretary soon felt it necessary to deny the meme as a blatant falsehood. “This is not true (obviously),” Strong fired back at Woods on Tuesday along with several tweets from reporters to back her up. Strong did not respond to requests for comment.

Obvious or not, Strong made clear on Wednesday that Ryan does not support the antifa.

“Speaker Ryan believes, as is obvious, these individuals are left-wing thugs, and those who are committing violence need to be arrested and prosecuted. Antifa is a scourge on our country,” she told The Daily Caller’s Alex Pfeiffer.

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The seeming success of an online campaign to paint Ryan as supportive of violent leftists is another example of right-wing trolls’ ability to shift narrative to the point that powerful politicians feel compelled to respond.

Matt Goerzen, a researcher who studies disinformation and media manipulation, says that a meme campaign like this serves to “keeps the idea of equivalency between antifa and violent right-wing extremists in the news cycle” and to force politicians to take a side in a fabricated debate.

“The longer this issue captures people's attentions the more likely a misstep will be made by someone whose reputation matters, or someone will make a significant statement or political decision,” said Goerzen, who works for the Data & Society research institute in New York City.

In the wake of the violence in Charlottesville on August 12 that killed one woman demonstrating against white supremacists, Ryan took aim at Trump’s statements that there was violence and blame on “both sides” of the rally, including what the president called the “alt-left.”

“There are no sides,” Ryan wrote on Facebook a few days later. “That is why we all need to make clear there is no moral relativism when it comes to neo-Nazis. We cannot allow the slightest ambiguity on such a fundamental question.”

The post made him an easy target for those aiming to paint him and other establishment politicians as supporting violence by leftists and anarchist groups that have shown up at rallies in several cities.

The memes attacking Ryan with false quotes were part of a wider online campaign to hound members of Congress about the antifa, particularly prominent Republicans.

As POLITICO reported last week, the troll known as Microchip drafted a petition to classify the antifa as a “terrorist organization” with the sole aim of getting it to go viral and distract from reports of conservatives condemning Trump's Charlottesville response. The petition quickly gathered more than 300,000 signatures, enough to require an official White House response.

“So the narrative changed from 'I hate myself because we have neo-Nazis on our side' to 'I really hate antifa, let's get along and tackle the terrorists,’" explained Microchip.

Many on Twitter similarly praise Microchip and his crew for Ryan's stance against the antifa. For days, the online provocateur rallied Trump supporters online to call Ryan's office and "ask him to publicly denounce" the group.

"Congrats to Micro and everyone who made this happen!" tweeted Jack Posobiec, another right-wing Twitter operative who promoted the "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory, which prompted a man to shoot a rifle in Washington’s Comet Ping Pong pizza shop because of social-media posts claiming that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of it.