Trump civil war not over yet
LAST-DITCH EFFORT: ‘REVOLUTION’ TO KEEP HIM IN OFFICE OPENLY PLANNED ON SOCIAL MEDIA Supporters respond to US president’s tweet that a demonstration outside Congress ‘will be wild’.
The attack on the US Capitol building on Wednesday last week was shocking, but no one following right-wing activity on social media should have been surprised. The attempt by President Donald Trump’s far-right supporters to violently stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote and formalising Joe Biden’s election victory was consistent with their openly expressed hopes and plans.
As a researcher of far-right extremism, I monitor social media communities.
For weeks, I watched as groups across the right-wing spectrum declared their intentions to prevent what they claimed was corruption on a monumental scale.
To most of these activists, there was no possible resolution other than Trump emerging victorious.
In the open, they discussed how they were preparing to force Congress and Vice-President Mike Pence to nullify the election results and declare
Trump the victor.
The build up
Since the election in November, Trump and his allies had spread baseless conspiracy theories, alleging that Democrats, some Republicans and the “deep state” had committed widespread voter fraud.
In this myth, Trump had won the election in a landslide and only corrupt politicians stood in the way of his victory.
Conservative groups began organising a protest in Washington, DC, following an 18 December tweet from Trump: “Big protest in D.C. on Jan. 6. Be there, will be wild!”
His instructions were taken seriously by mainstream supporters and far-right extremists alike. It became a desperate, last-ditch effort.
As social media posts showed, this desperation led them to express the righteousness of using violence to force Congress to act in their favour.
Out in the open
In the days preceding last Wednesday, across Twitter and Facebook, people began speaking of 6 January in near-mystical terms, thousands of posts referring to the planned protests as if they were a coming revolution.
In some circles, it became synonymous with a final battle – the moment when the supposed crimes of Democrats would be laid bare and ordinary Americans would take back the government.
“On January 6, we find out whether we still have a constitutional republic,” one user tweeted. “If not, the revolution begins. I’d rather fight and die than live in a socialist society. Pretty sure 80 million Americans feel the same way.”
Specific references to storming the Capitol also appeared.
More frequently, QAnon adherents zeroed in on it as the beginning of a chain of events that would lead to apocalyptic
cleansing they refer to as “The Storm.”
Some even believed The Storm would arrive during the demonstration itself, and that Trump would, far beyond any reasonable expectation, arrest members of the Democratic and global elite for treason while also winning the election.
Although posts on Facebook and Twitter hinted that more than just protests were possible, nowhere was the coming violence as obvious as on Parler, which has attracted millions of new conservative users in the past year, has positioned itself as a bastion for right-wing conspiracy theories and organising efforts.
From my research, hundreds of users expressed their sincere belief and even desire that the demonstrations would spark a physical battle, revolution or civil war.
“We are ready to fight back and we want blood...” a Parler post declared.
Another stated, “January 6 will either be our saving grace or we will have another civil war that should end very quickly!! Either way Trump will be our POTUS!! Anything less is unacceptable!!”.
I have no doubt the demonstration was designed to force Congress to overturn the election. Although the act of storming the Capitol may not have been planned, demonstrators had prepared to use at least the threat of violence to intimidate Congress during the certification process. And the communities that caused the events show every intention of acting again.
► Alex Newhouse is research lead, Centre on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism, Middlebury Institute of International Studies
I’d rather fight and die than live in a socialist society