Groups that track extremist organizations have begun to decode the signs, posters and iconography used. You could draw on this, as well as texts on visual rhetoric, to analyze key sites. You could use this as a lens to look at pictures from rallies, images shared on twitter and Facebook, web sites, and magazines, and discuss how they persuade, create meaning, remix old and new forms, create community, and construct calls to action. Herrick: how do these texts persuade, adapt to an audience, reveal motives, assist advocacy, build community and mediate power? See “links” page on wiki – there is a section on the topic.

The above is a poster for the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally derived from Benjamin Franklin’s famous “Join, or Die” cartoon. The groups depicted include from left to right (K) “Kekistani,” (AC) “Anti-Communist,” (L) “Libertarian,” (N) “Nationalist,” (I) “Identitarian/Identity Evropa,” (SN) “Southern Nationalist,” (NS) “National Socialist,” and (AR) “Alt Right.” The National Socialist flags depicted include Traditionalist Worker Party and Vanguard America.

Franklin’s woodcut showed a snake cut into eighths, each segment labeled with the initials of one of the American colonies or regions. The cartoon appeared along with Franklin's editorial about the "disunited state" of the colonies, and helped make his point about the importance of colonial unity.