Hillary Clinton has a troll problem. Her opponent is no ordinary politician but a troll king, who has energized an online army of covert mischief-makers. Clinton’s dilemma is how to respond.

There are no bigger trolls in American public life than the alt-right. It’s an amorphous movement, but is composed of break-away factions of the conservative movement that are most inclined to support Trump: protectionists, nativists, isolationists, with more than a dash of white nationalism. While the more public manifestations of the alt-right can be seen in publications like Breitbart, Taki, and VDare, most of the foot soldiers are trolls in the the most common sense of the word: anonymous internet pests, given to spreading Nazi-themed memes while hiding behind anime avatars.

Trump has gone out of his way to give winking approval to the alt-right by retweeting their memes and hiring Breitbart chief Steve Bannon, who once said his publication is “the platform of the alt-right.”



There’s a sensible adage online: “Do not feed the trolls.” Trolls live off attention, so if you respond to them, they get more energized. The problem is, if you leave trolls alone you run the risk of letting them poison public discourse unabated.

Clinton has decided to take the issue head on. She’s going to deliver a speech later today linking Trump to the alt-right and explaining why the movement is dangerous to America. As she told Anderson Cooper last night, in a preview of her remarks: “He is taking a hate movement mainstream.”