Donald Trump’s presidency is well underway, but many observers are still trying to understand how he won the office in the first place. Plenty of explanations are circulating, from Hillary Clinton’s weaknesses as a candidate to pervasive sexism and class disenfranchisement in the Rust Belt. But whatever the truth, those who worked tirelessly on behalf of Trump have got what they were after.

A small subset of these campaigners is worth special attention. Not so much because of their political convictions but because of their unrestrained fervour to fulfil an ancient Egyptian prophecy involving Trump, a cartoon frog, and an online counterculture.

Alt-right meme Pepe the Frog.

The story starts with the infamous online image board 4chan, which has been a weather-vane of internet subculture since its conception in 2003. 4chan is divided into sub-forums about topics ranging from video games and anime to politics. Users communicate largely through memes – images somehow grounded in pop culture and featuring a recurring character, figure or phrase. Around 2010, 4chan users began posting and reposting the image of a cartoon frog, Pepe. By 2015, his wrinkly, wide-eyed face had become a staple meme within the community.

The sub-forum “/pol/” caters to the internet’s extreme fringe: anarchists, communists, far-right extremists and white supremacists. /pol/ is 4chan’s second most popular sub-forum, and is one of the main forces that set the tone for online fringe political discussion.