MAGAReport for 9/15/2024 - "assassination attempt" #2
The rhetoric today has gone violent again
Hello and welcome to all the new subscribers who found me from my HuffPost article about spending my summer going to Trump rallies!
This afternoon brought reports of a man who showed up with an AK-47 on Trump’s golf course to attempt an assassination, though, at the time of writing, it does not seem that he fired any shots before the Secret Service stopped him. Even so, this “second assassination attempt” is the dominant topic of discussion on far-right social media tonight. We’re seeing them flex their fascism with calls for executions of public officials, threats of violence against the media and liberals, and support for Trump-loyal security services. All 10 of the top 10 threads on the forum are about the “assassination attempt” right now.
After the shooting in Butler, PA back on July 14, I wrote about the violent rhetoric that flared in the MAGA online communities. In the months since then, they have regularly bemoaned the lack of media coverage on the shooting, despite the fact that Trump’s injuries were so minimal that, less than 2 weeks later, he appeared in public with nary a mark on his ear.
This new threat against Trump’s life is exactly what they have been hoping for (though they would never put it quite that way). They think it makes Trump look strong and heroic, and they believe it will draw in voters. It also feeds their conspiracy theory-based belief systems. They reject the evidence that the first shooter was basically apolitical and they fully believe that powerful forces were behind the Butler attack. At the time of writing (Sunday evening), the would-be shooter is known to be a 60-year-old anti-vax white man with a history of mental illness who voted for Trump in 2016. But on the forums, you would not know that:
I read this next thread earlier tonight. See all these comments removed by moderators? These are comments so extreme that even a message board created for people who got kicked off reddit has decided the content is not appropriate. I read it before the moderators got to it, and the removed posts were calling for a 1989 Romanian revolution style execution of the existing heads of state.
We can see references to these deleted comments further in the thread with enthusiasm for participating in the execution of the party in power:
So we have calls for executing members of the party in power so explicit that this forum removed them. Then we also have calls for Trump to essentially create his own private security force:
There are threats against the media and rhetoric that Obama is the antichrist:
And explicit language about violence against the left, which I find especially concerning:
I have been writing all year about how there is a deep craving for violence among the far-right MAGA crowd. Incidents like this make them feel like they have justification to carry it out. We can see from all these comments how fascist politics (which I dive into here) underlies so much of MAGA extremism. They don’t just want to punish the person who tries to hurt Trump. They want all their enemies rounded up and put in camps or otherwise disappeared.
Will these fantasies spill over into actual violence? As of now, there is nothing concrete to say they will. However, as I have written before, they are just waiting for a command and an excuse. If Trump decides to direct his followers to attack a certain target, I think many of them will engage. So far he has held off, but as the election looks more uncertain for him, I would not be surprised if he starts moving in this direction.
I will be at the Wednesday rally on Long Island, so I will bring you back insights from that event.
This is a great time to check your voter registration, too: iwillvote.com
I'm one of the new subscribers who found you from your article. I'd been searching for awhile to find a site, or someone who was tracking the chatter on RW MAGA boards particularly to keep an eye on the potential of violence. Thank you so much for doing this and your courage to attend those rallies and make these reports.
I expected the potential to increase dramatically after the debate. That event was the real life enactment of their greatest fears demonstrated before their eyes. A loss of power—which they believe they deserve—a radical change in the hierarchy where white men deserved and got respect from their inferiors. Here, we not only had a woman talking back to their chosen leader, but a black woman. Not only disrespecting him, but attacking him and making him look like a fool.
My concern is how will the base, who have looked to him to be their savior and give them their rightful power back, react in the face of his being treated like this, and his reaction to it of anger and confusion?
Will they begin to lose faith and belief in him, to finally see him as the weak, small minded, inept, lying fool he is?
Or will they, reverse projecting you might call it, take it as an attack on themselves and their way of life? Will they see it as clear evidence that what they have believed they'd been facing, fearing and fighting against all these decades—as constantly reinforced by RW propaganda*—was real and existential?
And in turn, feeling defeated, or near to it, turn now to violence, as a last stand, like cornered animals?
And when will the violence break out? Before, during, and after the election? or all three?
Be safe out there, and thank you again.
(*The irony of the lead comments in the last 3 blocks above is amazing and surreal; clearly describing the propaganda process that has captured and fed their rage and anger and redirected it for decades, and so wrongly attributing it to 'the Left'....I could write a long comment on just that, but this is already too long.)