When news broke that President Donald Trump was preparing to launch cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield, some of the most prominent critics of the move weren’t the center-leftists who’ve knocked almost every decision he’s made since taking office.

Rather, it was Trump’s most vocal and controversial online supporters themselves, the far-right mediasphere that rallied behind his candidacy.

While traditional conservative analysts and outlets applauded the decision to strike following Syria President Bashar Assad’s chemical attack on his own people Monday, the reaction was radically different among supporters online.

Paul Joseph Watson, a vlogger at the conspiracy-peddling blog InfoWars, announced the end of his support for the president, vowing to support far-right French presidential candidate Marie Le Pen. 

Banned from Twitter, ousted Breitbart provocateur Milo Yiannopoulous spent much of Thursday railing against Trump’s decision on Facebook.

Right-wing pseudo-journalist Chuck Johnson also took to Facebook to criticise American intervention in Syria. 

“I will spend every minute of 2020 working to defeat Trump if we invade Syria,” Johnson promised.

They were far from alone.

Ann Coulter declared that Trump was destroying his own presidency, while Lauren Southern, a Canadian alt-right personality known for highly controversial stunts like faking a gender transition and confronting progressive protesters, livestreamed herself drinking wine and blasting “neo-cons” like senior adviser Jared Kushner and Sen. John McCain.

“We’re going to war, isn’t this fun, guys? Isn’t this great?” she rhetorically asked. “I don’t get this. Literally no one wants to do this.”

Others floated conspiracy theories about the supposedly true nature of the strike.

“New Right” personality Mike Cernovich urged his almost 250,000 Twitter followers to call the White House, demanding a stop to the strikes, and floated a number of unproven conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones also perpetuated the conspiratorial false-flag narrative, declaring that the strikes could plunge the US into World War III.

Other figures appeared more unsure, or telegraphed their disapproval. 

Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft and Michael Flynn Jr., former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s outspoken son, both spent the evening retweeting posts disapproving of the strikes. A source inside Breitbart told Business Insider that the far-right publication’s staffers were split over the decision to strike. 

The split between hawkish Trump supporters paraded on outlets like Fox News and antipathy to the strike online reflected the president’s own flip-flops on interventionism during the campaign.

While he occasionally threatened to “bomb the s***” out of foes like ISIS, he proposed working with Russia and Assad to fight ISIS, and expressed suspicion about Syrian rebels.

“I don’t like Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS,” Trump said during the second presidential debate.

The split further harkened back to the pre-Trump roots of the alternate online conservative movement.

Many figures like Jones and white nationalist Richard Spencer expressed interest in Ron Paul’s 2008 candidacy, partially citing his anti-interventionist ideology.

Some right-wing figures pleaded for unity among Trump supporters online.

In a livestream, Tim Treadstone, better known as the occasionally anti-Semitic Twitter personality Baked Alaska, attempted to spin division between Trump supporters as a critique of “zombie” leftists.

“I personally am against the airstrikes and I think Trump made a bad decision, but we need to listen to each other right now and not go against each other,” Treadstone said. 

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