A few months ago I started a racist Facebook account.

The reason I did so is, at this point, largely irrelevant. Suffice to say, my initial goal in creating the fake account was to make it look real enough that I would be accepted into closed and secret racist Facebook groups. Not to cause trouble anywhere, but to watch, and learn who these people are and what makes them tick. My own personal Facebook feed long ago become something of an echo-chamber of progressive ideas. I wanted to see the other end of the extreme.

I didn’t want to create a cartoonish villain, but rather a profile that could convincingly belong to a real person with a tendency to proudly wear his bigotry on his sleeve. I used a photo of a random young man in a bar — I literally Googled “random guy” to find it — then set my location to a small city in the American south and “liked” Facebook pages for popular things in that area. Then, over the course of a couple of days, I shared a few memes about racism against whites, pride in the Confederate flag, and links to articles on websites that supported such views. My privacy settings made it impossible to see I actually had no friends yet.

Once my public profile looked legit, I searched for a few white nationalist/supremacist Facebook groups (I learned they now call themselves “white traditionalists”) and requested to join. Within an hour I was accepted into one, then another, and in each group I immediately looked for a few active posters and sent them “friend” requests. Surprisingly quickly, I had a few racist friends. I sent more requests, to more people in those same groups, and via the power of Facebook’s “mutual friend” alert, most were soon accepted. Within a week I was being sent at least a dozen “friend” requests every day, and I accepted them all. I was being added by my new “friends” to additional hate-filled groups, about not just white power but loving guns, hating SJWs (“social justice warriors”), and even groups that seem to be mostly dedicated to posting photos of women in Confederate flag bikinis.

Soon I had over 300 racist friends.

I mean, I have to assume they are all racist. Not just because white supremacist groups were our only point of connection, but because the awful, bigoted things on my own profile I were racking up “likes,” shares, and comments like “FUCK YEAH!”

Never, at any time, has anyone reacted negatively to something I posted. No one calling me out as racist, or over the line. No corrections to regurgitated conspiracy theories and hoaxes. No lost “friends.”

I explain all of this to make it explicitly clear: I went in looking for racists. Just racists.

And now my feed is 90% posts about why Donald Trump should be our next President.

If it’s pro-Trump, it’s in my feed: Videos of angry speeches, re-posts of talking points from his official Facebook and Twitter accounts, and an endless stream of “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” and “TRUMP STRONG THE LION!”

A hatred of “Political Correctness” is everywhere.

Trump can do no wrong. The most vile of his statements? These people agree with him. Any criticism against him only emboldens his supporters more.

Tell me again how their problem with Bernie Sanders is about the workability of his proposed policies.

Has Trump declared someone his enemy? They are ruthlessly mocked in the most coarse and hateful ways you can imagine:

“Hahaha, look, Hillary Clinton’s head, poorly pasted onto the half-naked, cellulite-covered body of some other woman! She’s old and saggy!” “Bernie Sanders is the atheist Jew who wants to take your money and kill babies!” “Barack Obama is a secret Muslim, intent on bringing Sharia Law to the United States!” “The GOP and [Trump’s fellow candidates] are pussies!” “The mainstream media is out to get Trump and treating him unfairly! And Megyn Kelly is a brainless bimbo!” “Immigrants are stealing our jobs!“ “Immigrants are unemployed welfare bums!” “Refugees are terrorists in disguise!” “Protesters against Trump are thugs, gang members, drug addicts, godless communist agitators, and dangerous dogs who need to be brought to heel!”

One “friend” of mine is desperate to get involved in the “Lion’s Guard,” Donald Trump’s growing personal militia of enforcers. Not because there is a legitimate danger from “far-Left agitators” but because he openly wants to, in his own words, “fuck a nigger up and kick a monkey dyke in the cunt.”