If you ever wondered where all those Trump trolls on Twitter, Facebook and in comment sections come from, wonder no more

Patrick Ruffini, Co-Founder/Partner of EchelonInsights polling and data outfit in Washington DC (and #NeverTrump), is leading a Twitter army of investigators who are snooping out thousands of fake Trump supporter accounts.

Here he found many fake Trump followers filing Federal Communication Commission complaints against the Cruz campaign for making Robocalls:

People with 0 Twitter followers seem very interested in filing complaints against Ted Cruz. pic.twitter.com/FZBVVWC36V — Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 8, 2016

He traced the activity to 465 Twitter accounts:

465 Twitter users collectively urged people to complain to the FCC about Cruz robocalls. — Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 8, 2016

Those 465 Twitter accounts were fake robo accounts that had generated massive amounts of Twitter activity:

These 465 accounts generated 411K tweets about Trump over the last 30 days. — Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 8, 2016

Trump is not just buying up fake accounts – he’s got entire vast networks of fake accounts that are constantly re-tweeting and mentioning each other:

.@WDFx2EU, a Trump account that has 89.6k followers, has generated 626k mentions & didn’t exist on 3/1. pic.twitter.com/flfN9DMs9C — Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 8, 2016

Follow Patrick and crew’s excellent investigation on his Twitter page

Fortune Magazine Explores – “Donald Trump’s Social Media Ties to White Supremacists”

Fortune recently ran an amazing investigative journalism piece on Trump’s Twitter ties to the top 2000 white supremacist “influencers” online. What they found was that Trump re-tweets them at an alarming rate:

“Since the start of his campaign, Donald Trump has retweeted at least 75 users who follow at least three of the top 50 #WhiteGenocide influencers. Moreover, a majority of these retweeted accounts are themselves followed by more than 100 #WhiteGenocide influencers.”

Fortune found that Trump was not the only one in the campaign deeply involved with the top white supremacist trash. Trump spox Katrina Pierson (who, in an odd twist, is black herself) and others in the campaign follow some of the top white supremacy leaders on social media:

Trump national campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson (who is black), follows the most influential #WhiteGenocide account, @Genophilia, which is best known for helping to launch a Star Wars boycott after it became known that the new film’s lead character was black. Pierson also follows #WhiteGenocide influencer @Trumphat, who has tweeted that he looks forward to seeing people “swing from lampposts” on the #DOTR, which stands for Day of the Rope ― a seminal event in the racist Turner Diaries novels that inspired Timothy McVeigh. The official Twitter account for Trump’s campaign in Nevada follows #WhiteGenocide influencers #3 and #40. The official Twitter account for Trump’s campaign in North Carolina previously followed #20, #74 and #77. Even the Twitter account for @USAFreedomKids, the young girls whose performance for Trump in Florida became a viral sensation, follows 13 of the top 100 #WhiteGenocide influencers, plus another account that promotes a pro-Hitler documentary called The Greatest Story Never Told.

and it goes on and on…

And it’s not just Trump and his people following the white supremacists online – Trump himself is by FAR the most popular politician for these same white supremacy “influencers” to follow:

a whopping 67.5% of the #WhiteGenocide influencers do follow @realDonaldTrump (as of March 15), while another 24.1% follow Trump campaign social media director @DanScavino

Another analyst looked at the frequency with which Trump re-tweets accounts with strong white supremacist ties

In just one week in late January, Marshall Kirkpatrick found that the majority of Donald’s re-tweets that week were from people who follow multiple white supremacists:

It turns out that Donald Trump mostly retweets white supremacists saying nice things about him. At least so far this week’s that’s how it’s gone. This isn’t one person, of the last 21 accounts retweeted by @RealDonaldTrump so far this week, our automated analysis of their accounts finds that: 28% of them follow at least one of the top 50 White Nationalist accounts on Twitter (6 of 21)

62% of them follow at least 3 people who’ve used hashtag #WhiteGenocide lately (13 of 21)

Kirkpatrick found that white supremacists online are a very tight-knit group, who throw a large amount of support at Trump:

1,055 people have used the hashtag #WhiteGenocide and Trump’s name in the same Tweet in recent weeks. And they’re not using it to be critical, they’re a tightly knit community of people, led by self-avowed “European rights activists” and “Nativists.” Who apparently are concerned that the direction the world is going in threatens the existence of the dominant race. 114 of the last ~2,000 people to use the word #WhiteGenocide have the word “Trump” in their Twitter bios.

“Dog-whistle Dictionary” – terms used in the Trump campaign that have specific meaning within the White Supremecist culture

The Trump Presidential campaign is strongly supported by David Duke and Don Black, the widely acknowledged leaders of the American white supremacy movement. This movement is a large tent that encompasses all the local KKK chapters around the country, white nationalists, white supremacy gang members (of which the Aryan Brotherhood is the most famous), and various Nazi groups. Their beliefs are the same as those held by Adolph Hitler and his henchmen over 85 years ago: that there is an Aryan blood race that is superior in intellect and attributes to all other races, and that the Aryan race needs a pure bloodline, a separate homeland, and that the Jewish people are their primary enemies.

Duke is a former grand wizard of the KKK, and hosts a daily radio show in which he urges white supremacists nationwide to support Donald Trump for President, going so far as to call them “traitors” if they don’t vote for him. Black is the head of the storm front website where the white supremacists congregate and discuss their efforts to support Trump and to oppose Jewish and minority people.

I spent some time recently researching Duke’s written radio archives and Black’s website in order to guage the extent of the support of Trump among white supremacists, which appears to be roughly 95% support. I will not link to those websites in this post, as I do not trust them not to try to inject phishing or other malware into your system. But if you feel it is worth the risk, they are easily found with a google search.

One thing I found in my research is that certain terms that Mr. Trump used in the debates were code-words for the various Jewish and minority conspiracies that white supremacists feel they are subjected to.

For example, Trump pointing at Ted Cruz and shouting “Goldman Sachs! Goldman Sachs!” at a debate over Cruz’s small, personally backed campaign loan during his Senate race in Texas:

“Goldman Sachs” – To a white supremacist, this appears to be dog-whistle language for “Jewish Zionist global domination conspiracy”. Pointing at Cruz and yelling “Goldman Sachs” is akin to pointing at him and yelling “puppet of Israel! Puppet of Zion!”

Other interesting terms that Trump focuses on, that have special meaning within the white supremacist culture:

“Media” – Trump is constantly complaining about the “nasty” media, trying to derail his campaign, despite the fact that he’s received over $2 billion in favorable free press which has actually driven his popularity. “Media” to a white supremacist refers to the “Zionist Media conspiracy” – again, part of the global Jewish operation to destroy the Aryan bloodline and dominate the world.

“Neocons” – defined as Jewish supremacists who are trying to take over the Republican Party as they saw Zionist America as having become the stronger vehicle for advancing their interests

“Immigrant”, “Immigration” – replacement of the pure Aryan white blood in America by third-world people

“Establishment” – Jewish-led media and Republican forces which require all candidates to pay obeisance to Israel

“Nationalism” – the establishment of a “white homeland” for pure Aryan bloods in Eastern Europe, the American Northwest, or midwestern areas like Iowa. A long-held dream of white supremacists all the way back to Hitler’s time

Putin and Russia – ever wonder why Trump keeps throwing praise at them? White supremacists view Putin and Russsia as the thorn in the side of the international Jewish conspiracy, befriending enemies of Israel such as Assad in Syria and Iran. Worth remembering – Putin is the current favorite world leader of the white supremacist movement. The white supremacists HOPE that President Trump will be every bit the anti-Israel warrior that Putin has been.

Amazing Shaolin Photo Slideshow

For anyone like me who appreciates martial arts, you won’t want to miss this slideshow from Reuters.

Well That’s it for the water cooler today. It’s an open thread so have at it.