r/The_Donald

r/The_Donald was a subreddit launched in June 2015, following Donald Trump’s announcement of his presidential campaign. It quickly evolved into a fervent online community with over 790,000 subscribers, who identified themselves as “Patriots.” This forum became a bustling hub for discussions and the creation of Internet memes in support of the U.S. president, Donald Trump. However, in June 2020, the subreddit faced a ban from Reddit due to repeated violations of the platform’s rules against harassment and targeting, marking an end to one of Reddit’s most active communities.

The subreddit’s activities often sparked controversy, leading to significant actions by Reddit’s site-wide administrators. These included a major overhaul of the Reddit software to limit the visibility of the subreddit’s content on the broader platform, specifically the r/all forum — a space Reddit describes as “the front page of the Internet.” In an effort to mitigate the subreddit’s impact, Reddit imposed a quarantine in June 2019. This measure required users to opt-in to access the community’s content, effectively removing it from search results and recommendations on the platform. Additionally, the quarantine restricted certain functionalities, such as running ads and implementing custom CSS.

In response to these restrictions, the moderators of r/The_Donald established an alternative website outside of Reddit, ensuring the community’s continuity beyond the platform’s control.

The subreddit was notorious for hosting content that propagated conspiracy theories, and for its instances of racism, misogyny, and Islamophobia. Reddit’s decision to ban the subreddit on June 29, 2020, cited its consistent rule-breaking, its antagonistic behavior towards the company and other communities, and its failure to align with Reddit’s fundamental standards.

Following the subreddit’s quarantine and subsequent ban, the moderators and core community members transitioned to thedonald.win, a separate website created as a contingency plan. This move was emblematic of their desire to persist in their support for Donald Trump and the exploration of a new political entity, the “Patriot Party.” The community continued its activities on this new platform, and following President Joe Biden’s inauguration, it migrated once more to patriots.win, reaffirming their unwavering support for Donald Trump and his political endeavors.