As President Donald Trump departed Washington for the final time, leaving his diehard fan base despondent, some of his most ardent supporters were busy fantasizing online about what they see as the very real next phase of the MAGA movement: The Patriot Party.

Online forums were filled with citations of a Wall Street Journal report that Trump, irritated by a perceived lack of loyalty from Republicans in the aftermath of the Capitol Hill invasion he helped foment, was considering starting his own nationalist political entity. While it’s unknown how serious the incredibly forgetful and famously fickle former president is about the idea, his followers, desperate for a light in the void, latched onto it. 

“All on board the Patriot party train!!!” said one user on Patriots.win, the latest iteration of a fanatically pro-Trump message board that was booted from Reddit last year. “Cuz if ya ain’t a Patriot, then yer a stinkin’ commie!…. Time to draw the line that matters,” followed up another user, angered by the GOP’s inability or unwillingness to install Trump as president despite his having lost […]