When Trump started his campaign, the phrase "The Donald" was definitely more of a meme. The content of that sub was indeed "so-over-the-top-this-must-be-satire"

When Trump started his campaign, the phrase "The Donald" was definitely more of a meme. The content of that sub was indeed "so-over-the-top-this-must-be-satire" type content... Pepe memes, crude photoshops of Trump as a God, the bots that would autoreply "THE WALL JUST GOT X FEET HIGHER!", the refrain of "GET THIS MAN A COAT" when a supporter of a dropped-out candidate would be lured in by the energy and the jokes. But that was more or less the entire facade of Trump's campaign. That language and those posts reached out to a significant constituency online of young, "edgy" men who love memeing and trolling. There was always an undercurrent of anti-black and anti-hispanic rhetoric, even when it seemed like satire.