Trump and Pepe the Frog: 2016 campaign turned meme political. Then it became a hate symbol
President Donald Trump posted a graphic on social media with a subtle nod to a meme that was added to the Anti-Defamation League hate symbol database during the 2016 presidential election.
A May 28 Truth Social post shows a black and white picture of Trump walking through a dark street with an on-image caption: "He's on a mission from God & nothing can stop what is coming."
In the background of the picture is Pepe the Frog, a popular internet meme that started as a comic in 2005 but was embraced by far-right groups when Trump was first running for president. Some racist and antisemitic uses landed it on the hate symbol list, but ADL says it depends on the context. Pepe the Frog has also become a popular meme coin, and Trump's Truth Social post was shared by a $PEPE account on X, repeating the refrain, "nothing can stop what is coming."
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump's recent post.
Why critics are alarmed: Trump shared an article with a pink triangle symbol
Pepe the Frog started as a character from a comic series, "Boy's Club" by Matt Furie in 2005, according to Know Your Meme.
While the somewhat sad-looking frog did not have racist or antisemitic origins, its proliferation through the internet as a meme led to its adaptation into something of a symbol for single men who felt they were on the social outskirts, Know Your Meme editor Brad Kim told the New York Times in 2016. But Kim said it became political when Trump shared a Trump-ified version of Pepe in October 2015.
"Pepe plugged into the ideology of the alt-right because it was a reaction against the people they call 'normies,'" Kim told the New York Times. "Pepe had been a symbol of the disenfranchised, social outcasts. It was Trump's natural audience."
In 2016, the Anti-Defamation League added Pepe the Frog to its list of hate symbols, though the organization notes many uses of this meme are still not rooted in bigotry or hate.
"The number of 'alt right' Pepe memes has grown, a tendency exacerbated by the controversial and contentious 2016 presidential election," Pepe's ADL page states. "However, because so many Pepe the Frog memes are not bigoted in nature, it is important to examine use of the meme only in context."
The ADL Center on Extremism's senior director of investigative research Carla Hill pointed out the "FruitSnacks" watermark on the graphic. Hill said it is a reference to a popular Truth Social account formerly associated with QAnon, the far-right movement that pushes the conspiracy theory that Trump is waging a secret war with a satanic "deep state."
"Nothing can stop what is coming," is commonly seen as a QAnon slogan, Hill said.
"The mere fact of posting a Pepe meme does not mean that someone is racist or white supremacist," the ADL page on Pepe states. "However, if the meme itself is racist or antisemitic in nature, or if it appears in a context containing bigoted or offensive language or symbols, then it may have been used for hateful purposes.'
In another offshoot of internet culture, Pepe the Frog is now a meme coin, a form of cryptocurrency often seen as a collector's item.
"$PEPE is a meme coin with no intrinsic value or expectation of financial return," a disclaimer on the website states. "There is no formal team or roadmap. the coin is completely useless and for entertainment purposes only."
Trump also has a meme coin: $TRUMP. He recently hosted a dinner for the top purchasers of the coin, who together invested a total of $148 million in the coin. The dinner stirred ethics concerns.
According to CoinMarketCap, $PEPE is the No. 25 most valuable crypto token and $TRUMP is No. 41.
Contributing: Mike Snider, Zac Anderson and Joey Garrison, USA TODAY
Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kcrowley@gannett.com. Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @kinseycrowley.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Who is Pepe the Frog? Donald Trump's Truth Social post, explained
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