In a crowded field, a new troll has established himself as the undisputed master of the art. To most people he’s repugnant, but to his peers he’s a formidable exemplar of a set of skills that have come to flourish in the era of online bile, useful only to those whose primary aim is destructive and reductive. He knows exactly the kind of incendiary comment that will bait his prey. And when the inevitable reaction comes, he basks in the reflected glory of his acolytes piling on, and turning a conversation into a battlefield. In so doing, he kills off any hope of a reasoned discussion, ensuring that name-calling, provocation and blatant hate take its place. This might not be good for the standards of public discourse, but it’s good for his ego – and it distracts from his ignorance.

Expert though he is, the new king differs from his predecessors in important ways. Usually trolls operate below the line; this one stands at a podium. Usually their ambitions are petty, but this one wants to be president of the United States. Usually trolls are anonymous, but everyone knows this one’s name. It’s Donald Trump.



Some political leaders take Trump on, but trolling experts say that’s ‘a mistake, because it allows him to set the tone of the debate, and the debate is in the mud’. Photograph: Michelle Mcloughlin/Reuters

According to those with expertise in trolling (academics and online community managers who spend their days stamping out his sort of behavior), the model of Trump’s polemical strategy doesn’t hark back to Kennedy and Reagan, but to prolific trolls like @nero and Violentacrez. If they are right, the presidential campaign is going to increasingly sound like an out-of-control thread on Reddit. But their diagnosis isn’t one of despair. Just as trolls are persistent, their opponents in public discourse have worked out effective ways of taking them on. And, experts say, the lessons of online comment culture could well apply to Hillary Clinton’s strategy for taking on the Donald.

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Though a troll is commonly associated with mythical Norwegian creatures, online “trolling” actually derives its etymology from a fishing term, which describes a method of drawing multiple lines behind a boat at once. “What trolling used to mean was a behavior online where someone would leave a lot of lures to snare people, to entice them to get angry,” says Derek Powazek, a veteran online community manager and the author of Design for Community: The Art of Connecting Real People in Virtual Places. Trolling can often manifest as relatively innocuous sarcasm and pranks, but it frequently veers into outright harassment and illegal personal threats. Powazek says that ultimately trolling is a game whose reward is laughter. And Donald Trump is laughing. “I think it’s perfect,” says Powazek. “He is the king of taking troll behavior, born of Twitter, into the formerly genteel world of politics.”

By playing the troll, Trump has masterfully dominated the news cycle and placed himself within reach of the Oval Office

According to Chuck Dueck, a senior vice-president at icuc.social, a company that manages the online presence for hundreds of companies and organizations, trolls fall into four different categories: those who deliberately practice harassment, those who enjoy being outrageous and causing havoc, those who love to argue, and those too stupid to know they are trolls. Dueck believes Trump is most like the second and third. “He has a long career of making outrageous statements designed to get attention,” Dueck says. “He now has the biggest stage to do it from. I believe he enjoys tossing out a statement and watching the reaction.”

A tweet depicting Hillary Clinton and a six-sided star that Trump deleted from his account followed by its replacement, which uses a circle. Photograph: Screengrab

Back in July, Trump tweeted out an image of Hilary Clinton’s face in front of a pile of cash, with the words “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” stamped on a red, six-pointed star. In response to the wave of accusations of anti-semitism, Trump didn’t apologize or attempt to put the event behind him. In true troll fashion, he chose to encourage the conflict instead of resolve it – first by saying it was a “sheriff’s star”, and then posting a photo of a six-sided star on a Frozen children’s book, asking whether this was also a Star of David.

Time and again, his outrageous comments and statements have seized the narrative away from his rivals, distracted the media with the antics of insults and bizarre statements, and steered the conversation away from substantive issues. Think back to the Republication primaries. Can you remember a single policy proposal debated by the candidates? Probably not. But who can forget Trump’s promise to build a giant wall with Mexico and block Muslim immigration, or his schoolyard nicknames for “Little Marco” and “Lyin’ Ted”? By playing the troll, Trump has masterfully dominated the news cycle and placed himself within reach of the Oval Office.

Trolling works for Trump because it is fundamentally a manipulation of our emotions. “Trolling is crafted by people who believe it is their job to figure out exactly what people’s buttons are, then press those buttons,” says Jessamyn West, a veteran community manager who now works at the Internet Archives Open Library.

Trump’s trolling is a high-impact, low-output strategy.

Trump’s trolling is a high-impact, low-output strategy. A single tweet or comment can generate days worth of free publicity, and keep him the central character in the race. Like all skilled trolls, Trump has proven masterful at inspiring his followers to do the bulk of his dirty work. According to West, the best trolls enter a conversation, make a comment or two, set off a fight, and step back as other trolls emerge to sling punches. Trolls aren’t warriors, they’re instigators. They know how to imply something racist, hateful or misogynistic, blowing rhetorical dog whistles that bring out more blatantly offensive supporters while allowing themselves deniability. “There’s an art to this,” West says. “It’s like a flaming bag of dog shit on someone’s doorstep.” Even if you know who likely put it there, it’s not as if you can dust it for prints.

‘Like all skilled trolls, Trump has proven masterful at inspiring his followers to do the bulk of his dirty work.’ Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Joseph Reagle, an assistant professor of communication studies at Northeastern University and author of Reading the Comments: Likers, Haters and Manipulators at the Bottom of the Web, uses the term “trollplex” to define the arena of combat where these proxy battles are waged. “In a trollplex someone like Trump can deflect attention from him onto more explicitly hateful people, by tweeting and retweeting, keeping their hands clean.” And so you get Trump consistently retweeting memes, jokes and statements from far-rightwing organizations and even neo-Nazis, then claiming ignorance when called out on it. Meanwhile, his racist supporters openly threaten Jewish journalists, because they feel Trump has subtly given them the go-ahead to do so.

By being the world’s most effective button-pusher, Donald Trump has brought the tactics of trolling out into the real world, where they are much more difficult to combat. And that is the single biggest problem with him running a presidential campaign like an online flame war. The tools that work to snuff trolls out online – muting, blocking and deleting accounts – don’t exist in the real world, particularly when the individual in question is guaranteed around-the-clock news coverage up until election day.



“He is now the Republican nominee,” says Reagle. “You can ban someone in an online community, but you can’t ban Trump.”

We might not be able to ban Trump, but experts agree that there are tactical ways to mitigate his impact. The question is, how can we use them?

‘Like crime, terrorism, or pandemic diseases, once introduced into a community, trolls will always return.’ Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Do not engage

“We’ve found that engaging with trolls will get them the very attention they want. Any engagement is really adding fuel to their fire,” says Jan Reischek, senior vice-president of ICUC Americas. This means that Clinton and her supporters should never resort to trolling behavior themselves, no matter what Trump says. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz fell for this, reacting to Trump’s name calling with sneers that only emboldened Trump. “I worry about Elizabeth Warren,” says Powazek, referring to the Democratic Massachusetts senator that Trump has insultingly called “Pochahontas”, and who consistently fights with him on Twitter. “She’s out there fighting fire with fire, but tactically it’s a mistake, because it allows him to set the tone of the debate, and the debate is in the mud. If you fight fire with fire on that, everyone burns.”

Instead, Democrats need to act more like New Jersey senator Corey Booker, who responded on television to a Trump insult by professing his love and concern for Trump’s mental sanity. “Treat him like a seven-year-old having a tantrum and focus on the substantive issues,” says Powazek.

Treat him like a seven-year-old having a tantrum and focus on the substantive issues Derek Powazek

Keep it factual, not personal

Deprive Trump of the emotional reactions he thrives off by focusing on policy and facts, two areas that are his proven weaknesses. Bog him down in specifics, and hold his feet to the fire on statements he makes on complicated issues like defense and fiscal policy, where his trolling tactics are of no use. Bill Eddy says this is the most effective way for dealing with high-conflict personalities. “Respond with information as assertively as the other side is responding aggressively. Aggressive tries to destroy the other party, but assertive stands up for yourself. It’s not personal.”

Defuse the anger

Trolls live to stoke rage. That is all they can do. Friendliness is their kryptonite. Clinton should muster every diplomatic skill she picked up at the state department and keep every public interaction friendly, no matter how much she despises Trump. “You have to ignore the living hell out of it,” says West.

This is obviously easier said than done, especially for the media, which may take issue with Trump’s message and tactics, but is nonetheless compelled to cover the presidential nominee.

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Donald Trump’s candidacy may be unprecedented, but he is unlikely to be the last candidate to employ a troll’s tactics in the pursuit of power. If there is one thing the experts in online communities agree on, it’s that trolling is a persistent problem with no simple solution. Like crime, terrorism or pandemic diseases, once introduced into a community, trolls will always return. “Politics doesn’t have the antibodies we’ve developed online to deal with trolls,” says Powazek. Perhaps a resounding Trump defeat in November can inoculate us against a bigger surge of troll candidates in the future, but many worry it will be too late.



“The time frame is a little short for the kind of learning we all need,” says Gail Ann Williams, who worked for many years fighting trolls at the website the Well. “The stakes are so high. It’s interesting to take these things and see them as a drama or sociological phenomenon, but the stakes are so much higher.”