What search terms can tell us about the alt-right

In our series giving a glimpse of life at The Independent, Matt Payton is disturbed to watch online trends play out in a real life bomb scare

The so-called Maga bomb plot has frightened us all. As someone who spends every day studying online search trends, I’ve found the targeting of America’s leading liberal voices very eerie.

Why is it eerie, you might ask? Mainly because I see all these names linked daily to Trump speeches, far-right rallies and alt-right websites.

If I had to produce a macabre list of the alt-right’s most hated US political entities based solely on search terms across the internet, the initial recipients of the suspicious packages – Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, CNN, George Soros and Robert De Niro – would be the top five without question. These are the most reviled bogeymen and women in the eyes of the far right. And news today about other critics of Donald Trump such as Senator Cory Booker and ex-intelligence chief James Clapper being targeted added credence to the theory that what we’re seeing is terror driven by such an ideology.