  Political trolls initiate online discord not only for the lulz (laughs) but
also for ideological reasons, such as promoting their desired political
candidates. Political troll groups recently gained spotlight because they were
considered central in helping Donald Trump win the 2016 US presidential
election, which involved difficult mass mobilizations. Political trolls face
unique challenges as they must build their own communities while simultaneously
disrupting others. However, little is known about how political trolls mobilize
sufficient participation to suddenly become problems for others. We performed a
quantitative longitudinal analysis of more than 16 million comments from one of
the most popular and disruptive political trolling communities, the subreddit
/r/The\_Donald (T\D). We use T_D as a lens to understand participation and
collective action within these deviant spaces. In specific, we first study the
characteristics of the most active participants to uncover what might drive
their sustained participation. Next, we investigate how these active
individuals mobilize their community to action. Through our analysis, we
uncover that the most active employed distinct discursive strategies to
mobilize participation, and deployed technical tools like bots to create a
shared identity and sustain engagement. We conclude by providing data-backed
design implications for designers of civic media.
