"HIGH ENERGY BASED Japan approved blanked [sic] surveillance over ALL" Muslims!

So reads the celebratory title of a Reddit post linking to an old news article about Japan's highest court approving surveillance of Muslims. The post is from the The_Donald community on Reddit, the major online gathering place for U.S. President Donald Trump's supporters. For them, it is a welcoming, "high energy" subculture dense with memes, conspiracy theories, alternative news sources, and celebration of Trump's intellect and leadership — a never-ending online Trump rally. I have been lurking in the community since the time when a Trump presidency was no more than a wacky thought experiment, but for the uninitiated, Christine Lagorio-Chafkin from the New York Times provides a great introduction.

Since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visits to the United States, I have been struck by the community's admiration for Japan and belief in Trump's widespread popularity there. Abe and Trump's bromance was warmly received by the The_Donald community, where it was celebrated with posts such as "70% of japanese approved of pm shinzo abe's trump visit! winning!" Indeed, the community has found many reasons to admire Japan. A 2015 Fox News headline, "Japan not taking in refugees; says it must look after its citizens first" was posted several times in February, with numerous other discussion threads praising Japan's strict immigration policy. Back in December a post sharing a piece by the far-right news site Infowars, analyzing how Japan's policies are a model for resisting Islamic terrorism, was one of the most popular topics in the community. In one of the highest rated comments, user bottomlines explains his admiration for Japan: