The messages are written, we hope, with some sense of irony. And yet they are so very creepy.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of posts in Reddit\u2019s\u00a0The_Donald<\/a>\u00a0forum \u2015 where Donald Trump this week\u00a0participated<\/a>\u00a0in a Q&A session \u2015 refer to the Republican presidential nominee as \u201cGod Emperor.\u201d<\/p>\n The practice of using this name for Trump apparently caught on last spring. New York Times reporter Jonathan Weisman wrote in May<\/a> about the deluge of anti-Semitic hate he\u2019d received from self-identified Trump supporters,\u00a0including \u201cNazi iconography of the shiftless, hooknosed Jew\u201d from a user called \u201cTrump God Emperor.\u201d<\/p>\n Among Trump\u2019s active online supporters, using the nickname is now commonplace. The post announcing Trump\u2019s participation in the Q&A heralded \u201cour God Emperor,\u201d and a search<\/a> of the phrase returned over 200 posts in the day after Trump\u2019s appearance.<\/p>\n Some forum members say \u201cGod Emperor\u201d is simply a tongue-in-cheek attempt to rile up Trump opponents who fear he would be a strongman as president. The term is attributed variously to God Emperor characters in the science fiction series Dune and a tabletop game called \u201cWarhammer 40,000.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe know he can\u2019t literally<\/em> be one,\u201d wrote<\/a>\u00a0member NewJersey908, but the phrase whips people\u00a0\u201cinto a frenzy saying that we literally want a dictator.\u201d<\/p>\n Likewise, The_Donald members also frequently describe Trump as\u00a0\u201cHis Nimbleness\u201d and call each other \u201ccentipedes,\u201d apparently a joking reference to a series of YouTube videos<\/a>\u00a0that blend footage of Trump with narration of what sounds like a nature show on insects.<\/p>\n Yet the bizarre and sometimes vulgar terms common to the forum (their enemies are \u201ccucks,\u201d an abbreviation of the racially charged term\u00a0\u201ccuckold\u201d<\/a>)\u00a0are paired with fringe conspiratorial views.<\/p>\n The most popular forum posts from the last month<\/a> include one complaining<\/a> that the media paid too much attention to a black police officer who was shot. Anotherreferenced<\/a>\u00a0a conspiracy that a Democratic National Committee staffer was murdered for leaking the group\u2019s emails. A third, titled \u201cReligion of Peace<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0features a cartoon of an Arab man with a bomb.<\/p>\n This nexus of pro-Trump activity on Reddit is strictly policed, with the goal of providing a safe space for its members.<\/p>\n \u201cLike Trump\u2019s campaign, r\/The_Donald has faced significant growing pains<\/a>\u00a0transitioning from a ragtag political campaign into a nationally relevant force,\u201d NBC News reported<\/a>. \u201cIts moderators have clashed over its direction and at times struggled to keep the site from being overrun by white supremacist and neo-Nazi Trump supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n Ahead of the Q&A on Wednesday, forum moderators banned more than 2,200 accounts<\/a>, according to tech site The Next Web.<\/p>\n \u201cMods banned any account created within the past month, and any that asked questions they felt were hostile, although there were no clear-cut guidelines of what constituted a hostile question,\u201d The Next Web reported.<\/p>\n The forum\u2019s previous leader, CisWhiteMaelstrom, was removed \u201cover accusations he planned to coordinate with white nationalist leaders to promote Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n Assuming you don\u2019t spend a lot of time in The_Donald, below is a taste of what you\u2019ve missed this past week.<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/The_Donald\/comments\/4uxqtv\/holy_shit_the_god_emperor_did_it\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/The_Donald\/comments\/4v272z\/when_crooked_hillary_gets_on_the_debate_stage\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/The_Donald\/comments\/4uxdkl\/the_god_emperor_is_almost_here_centipedes_lets\/<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/The_Donald\/comments\/4uwuki\/god_emperor\/<\/p>\n Editor\u2019s note:\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Screen-Shot-2016-07-30-at-2.02.28-PM.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Screen-Shot-2016-07-30-at-1.56.28-PM.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cI will be voting for the smoothest centipede, God Emperor DONALD J. TRUMP\u201d<\/h4>\n
\u201cThrust Game Too Strong\u201d<\/h4>\n
\u201cI bow before the GOD EMPEROR as I realize the error of my ways\u201d<\/h4>\n
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Screen-Shot-2016-07-30-at-2.00.07-PM.png\")
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