The image above was posted on Instagram Sunday morning by Donald Trump Jr., son of The Donald, with a sort of glee. “Apparently I made the cut as one of the Deplorables,” he wrote, saying that a friend had sent it to him. “All kidding aside I am honored to be grouped with the hard working men and women of this great nation that have supported@realdonaldtrump [sic] and know that he can fix the mess created by politicians in Washington.”
According to the image, playing off Sylvester Stallone’s geriatric action movie The Expendables, Donald Trump and his sons are alongside “hard working men” that include prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Breitbart commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, and Pepe the Frog, an amphibian meme strategically co-opted by Trump’s “alt-right” followers—specifically, the ones who peddle in racism and anti-Semitism.
Stone had tweeted the image out earlier, while Duke, who is running for Senator in Louisiana, tweeted his own version of the meme, filled with commentators and boasting the tagline: “Anti-Racist is a code word for anti-white.”
The men of the “#basketofdeplorables”, as Don Jr. tagged the photo, have often tweeted out anti-Semitic images, knowingly or unknowingly—but nevertheless to the great approval of far-right Trump supporters. Though Trump himself has often retweeted users who openly support white supremacy—one user he retweeted went by @WhiteGenocideTM—he has claimed no responsibility for his actions, saying instead, essentially, that retweets do not equal endorsements.