How did Pepe relate to "white supremacy"

In July 2015, when Donald Trump was running for President and claiming to build a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico, Maldraw, a Malaysian artist, posted on 4chan to paint Smug Pepe as Trump. Pepe connected with Trump for the first time.
As the presidential race grew more intense，more pictures of Pepe became Trump.Donald Trump retweeted a Trump Pepe image on October 13, 2015. 

Gradually, Pepe is related to the political and racial tendencies of Trump. Media began to describe Pepe as a symbol of "alt-right", "white supremacy" or even "nazi".
The most important reason of the wide spread of Trump Pepe is prestige. As a presidential candidate, Trump is worldwide famous. He even retweeted the image of Trump Pepe on social media, which became another reason: positioning. Since Trump's tweet is followed by a large quantities of users, his retweet was read by a lot of people. In addition, the image of Trump Pepe provokes high-arousal emotions. On the one hand, people find it funny when Pepe has a similar face with a presidential candidate. On the other hand, it is disgusting that the symbol is related to alt-right and white supremacy. These three reasons made Trump Pepe a viral meme.

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  1. Soup Twin-12018年9月19日 12:34

    Interesting example and reflection. Also what aspects of shifman's traits of viral and memetic success do you see in these meme examples. would like to see you comment more on this!

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