What’s the similarity between hardcore supporters of President Donald Trump and homosexual socialists? If you think that’s the start to a very weird joke, it’s not. A Facebook group called ‘Stop the Steal’ amassed 64k members and then changed its name to ‘Gay Communists for Socialism.’
As you can imagine, this prank made a lot of Trump supporters who were lured into the group confused and angry. Scroll down to see their reactions. Just remember, dear Pandas, whichever candidate you support, keep it civil in the comment section. The ‘Stop the Steal’ group was created by a joke-loving group of people who wanted to poke fun at the claim that Trump and some of his supporters are making that the President-Elect of the United States, Joe Biden, supposedly ‘stole’ the election.
MrTooDamnChris, who helped spread the word about the Facebook group’s name change with a viral Twitter thread that got over 116.9k likes, told Bored Panda that he wasn’t surprised that somebody decided to troll Trump supporters like that. “When the original ‘Stop the Steal’ group got banned, dozens of new ones cropped up to take its place. I considered making one myself for a laugh, but decided not to.” Read on for the Twitter user’s insights about what’s happening to America and what the future might bring.
A Facebook group called ‘Stop the Steal’ that was supposedly pro-Trump trolled the President’s supporters by changing the name of the page
And here’s how some of the group members reacted to the change
Twitter user MrTooDamnChris added that they could not see Trump congratulating Biden on his win in the near future. They also had some poignant insights about what the ‘Stop the Steal’ group and others like it represent.
“The popularity of these ‘Stop the Steal” groups represents a really potentially dangerous radicalization of the American right. So many people are joining them looking for hope and answers, and what they’re finding is QAnon conspiracy theories that assure them that Trump is in control. QAnon has been growing for a while, but I think the election is going to be their single biggest recruiting tool for new believers,” MrTooDamnChris warned of potential dangers in the US.
The group lured in Trump supporters after a similar group with over 350k members was shut down by Facebook for spreading misinformation. “We had no idea it would take off like this or suck in as many clueless people as it did when we made the switch,” one of the admins told The Guardian.
If you’re thinking that the whole ‘Gay Communists for Socialism’ thing sounds too weird for this world, remember three things. First, fact is always stranger than fiction. Second, have a look at this entire year and tell us that stranger things haven’t happened.
And third, the well-known fact-checking site Snopes confirmed that the ‘Stop the Steal’ page was created on November 5 and then removed the same day after the name change because of how much violent rhetoric filled the group’s feed.
Thousands of Trump supporters left the Facebook group within the first few hours after the name change. And after Twitter got wind of what was going on, supporters of Democratic Party candidate Biden flooded into the group to troll the pro-Trumpers. Eventually, things got out of hand. It’s likely that the page admins used aliases to protect their real identities.
At the time of writing, as far as the media is aware, Trump still has not congratulated Biden on his victory. Trump and his team plan to lodge lawsuits in several key states on Monday, according to the BBC. They plan to contest the election results there. The Trump campaign claims that there is ‘strong evidence’ proving election rigging, but has so far not provided the evidence for this.
Some people thought that the bait-and-switch was brilliant
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