Pro-Trump internet trolls escalate ugly attacks on Nikki Haley

Social media posts depicting her as Shiva, the deity of destruction. Others who deceptively use deep-fake technology to offend its voters. And still others who direct vitriol at her son, a college student.

For most of her presidential campaign, Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and former ambassador to the United Nations, has been spared the full onslaught of former President Donald J. Trump’s devoted following of internet trolls. The cadre of largely anonymous personalities waging a near-constant battle in Trump’s name first focused on brutally attacking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was considered the former president’s most powerful rival during the 2024 Republican primaries. But now that Ms. Haley is his last remaining opponent, the machine has turned her way.

Online personalities have spread vicious attacks in recent weeks through memes, posts and videos that often target her race, gender and identity, including some that vilify her for saying she was “bullied for being brown” and others that falsely claim that she is ineligible to serve as president because her parents were immigrants. Some of the most disturbing material is generated by artificial intelligence, digitally manipulating her voice and likeness. Much of the content is full of crude sexual innuendo.

Joan Donovan, a disinformation researcher and assistant professor of journalism at Boston University, said the threats and insults were indicative of the kind of low politics and “network intimidation” that Trump and his online admirers were ushering in.

“These are people who see themselves as participants in Trump’s troll army,” Ms. Donovan said. “Other politicians have failed to activate online audiences in the same way.”

As Ms. Haley and Mr. Trump face a heated primary battle on Saturday in South Carolina, her home turf, the online smears are only likely to increase. And in an age where campaigns wage war both online and offline, not all efforts are limited to the Internet.

Laura Loomer, an internet activist close to Mr. Trump who has harshly attacked Ms. Haley on social media, has also tried to ambush her at campaign events, shouting questions at her staff and surrogates and mocking their responses. to film. BlazeTV’s Alex Stein confronted some of Ms. Haley’s young female volunteers.

For most of the election cycle, Trump staffers, his allies and MAGA fans online focused their energy on Mr. DeSantis, who was subjected to wave after wave of social media posts and videos featuring him, his wife, his staff and his surrogates in very unflattering ways. The attacks against the governor focused on his masculinity, loyalty and competence, helping to plummet his poll numbers and deflating his image among Republican primary voters as a confident fighter for conservative causes.

The tide against Ms. Haley began shortly after the Iowa caucuses, when it became clear that she, not Mr. DeSantis, represented Mr. Trump’s strongest challenger. Initially, the content focused on her foreign policy stance, accusing her of being a “warmonger” and attacking some of her policy decisions as governor of South Carolina. While Ms. Haley mostly tried to stay above the fray, her son, Nalin, was ready to hit back at her rivals on social media platforms with his own memes and jokes.

The tone of the attacks changed dramatically after The Daily Mail published a story on January 19 resurfacing old allegations that Ms Haley had had two extramarital affairs in 2008, two years before she was first elected governor. Ms. Haley has long denied the allegations, but the article sparked a flood of content on X and other social media platforms depicting her in highly sexualized ways.

The posts, which were often obscene and used artificial intelligence to manipulate images or mimic Ms. Haley’s voice, did away with traditional political criticism and instead sought to portray an opponent as someone with a loose morality. Some posts were created by a team of internet trolls calling themselves Trump’s Online War Machine.

Karen Kedrowski, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University, said the content reflects a combination of sexist and racist undertones designed to rob targets of authority and turn them into objects of ridicule. The kind of harassment, she and other analysts say, could be particularly damaging to female candidates.

“It reduces women to sexual objects,” she said. That could open the door to more dangerous threats or physical violence, she added, noting how Ms. Haley has been the target of “swatting,” false emergency calls that have sent authorities scrambling to her door.

Interest in Ms. Haley appeared to wane this month as Mr. Trump began looking beyond the primaries to the general election and MAGA’s internet gladiators turned their attention to attacking President Biden and Fani T. Willis, the Fulton district attorney County responsible for bringing criminal charges against Mr. Trump accusing him of interfering in the 2020 election in Georgia. But with the South Carolina primary just days away, Ms. Haley has returned to the picture.

Ms. Haley’s supporters and allies see Mr. Trump and his staff as responsible for stoking the online vitriol. When Ms. Haley first started rising in the polls last year, the former president started calling her “bird brain.” His top advisers have followed suit, often describing her as “stupid” in online posts. Mr Trump himself amplified on his social media site a report that cast doubt on her citizenship.

Ms. Haley has fired back at some of Mr. Trump’s attacks, albeit with mixed results. Her campaign, whose top staffers are women and which has a national coalition of very active female volunteers, initially gleefully pointed to the “birdbrain” insults as evidence that the Trump camp was concerned about her momentum. Lately, she has stepped up her criticism of the former president, labeling him “unhinged” and a grumpy old man. Her attacks on Trump’s age and mental condition have not always gone down with some of her supporters, who have said they prefer her previous refusal to get personal.

Ms. Haley’s use of social media tends to be fairly traditional and scripted, like that of her team, with an emphasis on promoting events, policies and news media appearances. Unlike Mr. Trump, she does not appear to have a broad base of highly loyal and highly online messengers. And an attempt by creating her campaign anti-Trump memes a few weeks ago it was roundly mocked. Still, some of her staff have had direct contact with Mr. Trump’s team.

There was a back-and-forth online on Tuesday after Ms. Haley gave a speech in which she vowed not to drop out despite a string of early losses and regardless of the outcome in South Carolina on Saturday.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump who is known for throwing insults at the former president’s rivals, said on X that Ms. Haley would “sink down” and praise Mr. Trump once the primaries were over. Olivia Perez-Cubas, Ms. Haley’s spokeswoman, responded with a kissing emoji and “xoxo.”

In a statement to The New York Times, Mr. Cheung again called Ms. Haley “birdbrain” and said she had yet to name a state she could win. In response, Ms. Perez-Cubas quoted a line from Ms. Haley, who said she is “attracting all the voters that Donald Trump has driven out of the party,” a reference to Republican losses in the recent election.

Regarding the increase in content generated by fans of Mr. Trump, Ms. Perez-Cubas says it underlines why “tone at the top matters.”

“We need someone who can bring back civility and heal this country,” she said. “You can be tough and strong without being hateful.”

Some offline attempts to troll Ms. Haley’s team have sparked a backlash. Outside the swanky Dallas honky-tonk where Ms. Haley spoke last week, Mr. Stein, the BlazeTV personality, addressed some of her young female staffers on camera, calling them “hoes” and asking for information about their accounts on OnlyFans , a subscription-based website used primarily by sex workers.

The move was criticized online by Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a Republican who had been a top backer of Mr. DeSantis, and other conservatives.

“I debate elevating this behavior, but it needs to be exposed,” Mr. Roy wrote on X. “I have no problem with out-of-the-box attempts to challenge the status quo. But attacking a young, especially female, campaign worker or volunteer in this way deserves a blunt rejection. Be better, @BlazeTV.”

Mr Stein has since apologized.

Nicholas Nehamas reporting contributed.