SEOUL — They gathered in subzero temperatures, waving banners that read, "Stop the steal."

Some voiced faint hope that President-elect Donald Trump would support their cause; others accused China's Communist Party of infiltrating South Korea's news media.

All of it was in the service of one aim: to save South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.

A month after his short-lived declaration of martial law led to the suspension of his presidential powers, Yoon, who is facing an impeachment trial and criminal insurrection investigation, has evaded arrest by holing up in his presidential residence in central Seoul.

The gated compound, fortified now with barbed wire and buses parked to form a barricade, has become a rallying point for his last-remaining supporters: ultraconservative demonstrators and YouTubers who believe, as Yoon has claimed, that the country has been overrun by North Korea sympathizers conspiring to destroy South Korea's freedoms.

Among those who gathered here Wednesday was Lee Kwang-hoon, a 63-year-old apartment security guard who had taken off from work to join the several hundred Yoon supporters occupying the main road facing the president's residence.

"The leftists are trying to set up President Yoon on insurrection charges," he said. "We are here to save the country."

Primarily made up of older South Koreans in their 60s and 70s who are driven by the fervent anti-communist ethos of an earlier era, the group has aligned itself with Christian extremists, the American far right and YouTube channels awash in conspiracy theories.

Though long dismissed by the broader public as fanatics, Lee and his peers have found a newfound source of legitimacy: Yoon, who in recent weeks has openly amplified their ideas, including a widely debunked election conspiracy theory that was at the center of his botched martial law declaration.

In a recent public address, Yoon acknowledged that he had instructed his defense minister to inspect the electronic systems at the National Election Commission, suggesting that the results of last year's general elections — which delivered a massive legislative majority to the country's liberal party — were the result of subterfuge.

"How could the South Korean people trust the results of the election?" Yoon asked.

Amid his mounting woes, the president has made his affinities to the far right even clearer.

On Jan. 1, two days before South Korean investigators made their first, unsuccessful attempt to detain him, he sent his supporters a signed letter that reiterated the familiar clarion call against "anti-state" forces and vowed to "fight until the end."

"I am watching your efforts through live YouTube broadcasts," the letter said.

With investigators preparing to make a second attempt in the coming days, Lee said he would throw himself between them and the president.

"Even if they send in the police special forces unit, I'm going to block them with my body," he said. "I would rather sacrifice my own life rather than live in a country controlled by communists."

Even before the current crisis, Yoon's embrace of right-wing YouTubers stirred concerns.

More than two dozen YouTube personalities were invited to Yoon's inauguration by first lady Kim Keon-hee. Some were later appointed to government positions.

In a memoir published last year, Kim Jin-pyo, the former speaker of the National Assembly, recalled meeting Yoon shortly after the 2022 Itaewon Halloween disaster, in which 159 people were crushed to death after being trapped in a narrow alley.

When Kim urged the resignation of Interior Minister Lee Sang-min, Yoon responded that he had "strong suspicions" of the "possibility that the incident was induced and contrived by certain forces," Kim wrote.

"I couldn't believe that the sort of conspiracy theory talk that appears on far-right YouTube broadcasts was coming out of the president's mouth," the former speaker said.

In recent weeks, rather than distancing themselves from Yoon, many in his party have followed suit.

On Sunday, several lawmakers from Yoon's conservative People Power Party attended a rally held by Jeon Kwang-hoon, an ultraconservative pastor who has stirred controversy for demonizing Muslims and advocating the institutionalization of gay people.

The following day, 44 of them visited the rally in front of the presidential residence in a show of support.

"I express my unlimited respect for these efforts to protect the president and the country," said lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun.

Some within the conservative camp have expressed alarm at the party's embrace of a group that most mainstream conservatives had previously kept at arm's length, as well as the persecution of legislators who have flouted the party line to support the president's impeachment and arrest.

Kim Sang-wook, a PPP lawmaker who has been one such dissenting voice, recently revealed that he had been ostracized by senior party members, one of whom pressured him to quit the party.

"That is a totalitarian idea and only something that a far-right party would say," he told reporters Thursday.

Experts say the PPP's refusal to abandon Yoon is little more than an attempt at survival.

"I think the PPP leadership has essentially judged that, without a viable exit strategy, they have no choice but to stand by Yoon," said Jung Byung-kee, a political scientist at Yeungnam University. "The likelihood that Yoon's impeachment will be confirmed is very high, and if that happens, the PPP will become the political party that has been impeached twice. Then they lose any justification for existing at all."

In 2017, Park Geun-hye, another conservative, was the first South Korean president to be ousted from office, after a corruption scandal that saw over 1 million protesters take to the streets.

Despite the fervor of Yoon's supporters, Jung points out that they are a vocal minority who represent a dying breed in politics.

According to a recent survey conducted by polling company Hankook Research, 70% of South Koreans believe that the country's Constitutional Court should confirm Yoon's impeachment, with a similar percentage saying that they believed Yoon's declaration of martial law constituted insurrection.

"This sort of deeply ideological anti-communist politics only really works on people who are in their 70s or older," Jung said.

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