Far-right, white nationalists step up rhetoric after Trump verdict
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Far-right groups and white nationalists have responded to last week's guilty verdict against Donald Trump with vague threats of violence and racist posts about people of color, monitoring groups say.
Why it matters: Trump himself has repeatedly made threats about prosecuting opponents, used bigoted language to describe immigrants and suggested a loss in November may result in violence.
Zoom in: Almost immediately after the verdict was announced, white nationalists went online to compare Trump's conviction to the U.S. becoming a "third world country" or "banana republic," according to Western States Center, a group that monitors anti-democracy movements.
- "Don't be surprised, you know this was going to happen. Stand back and stand by this is far from over, we promise," the far-right Proud Boys wrote on one of its websites. An Ohio Proud Boys chapter vowed "war," according to Reuters.
- "This is the road to serfdom — unless this Marxist lawfare is stopped, halted, and reversed and democracy restored," said former Trump aide and America First Legal president Stephen Miller in a statement.
- Trump responded to the verdict with white replacement theory rhetoric by declaring that "millions of people pouring into our country right now from prisons and from mental institutions...and they're taking over our country…"
Threat level: Violent promises coming from the various far-right groups after the verdict may encourage individuals to commit violence, Lindsay Schubiner, program director at Western States Center, tells Axios.
- "It lays the groundwork for more anti-democracy actions and that's particularly dangerous in the lead-up to the election."
- Schubiner said many of the posts on social media blame immigrants for Trump's guilty verdict even though the case had nothing to do with immigration.
- Groups are posting threats on Telegram channels, social media and other platforms, Schubiner said.
Zoom out: Some posts from extremist groups also attack the racial diversity of New York City (where the Trump trial was set) and make racist remarks about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), who is Black.
- Google searches for "rigged trial," "boycott New York" and "kill the judge" also spiked after the verdict, Brian Levin, the recently retired director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, tells Axios.
- "While violent and intimidation-directed rhetoric definitively sloped up, it did so the week before the conviction, when there were similar false narratives concerning some of Mr. Trump's other difficulties already in mainstream circulation."
- Levin said that "Dox the jurors" and "kill Biden" were other Google searches that went up after the verdict.
The bottom line: Extremist groups' broad expression of conspiracies and aggression in response to current events is now the norm and is becoming more mainstream, Levin said.
- Schubiner said anti-hate advocates fear the unchecked continuing behavior online could become normalized, putting immigrants and people of color at risk.
