It's been over a week since Donald Trump started unsubtly begging his supporters to lash out against government officials like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The former president kicked things off with an all-caps Truth Social post demanding people "PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!" When the violence didn't materialize, Trump escalated. He threatened "death & destruction" if prosecutors didn't back down, posted a photo implying he wanted to beat Bragg with a baseball bat, and sneered at people calling for his supporters to remain "peaceful." The escalating rhetoric culminated in a rally Saturday in Waco, Texas, which was an unsubtle call-out to the far-right militia movement's veneration of cult leader David Koresh, who has become an inspirational figure for those who want to wage war with the federal government.
There have been some death threats to Bragg, some of them quite scary. The possibility of a lone unhinged actor lashing out still looms large. But it's becoming pretty clear that another January 6-style riot is unlikely. Trump fans are even circulating conspiracy theories that the FBI is trying to trick them into rioting. Trump supporters probably don't believe this story, since it requires assuming that Trump is letting the FBI use his social media account to bamboozle them into getting arrested. It's likely more that they're afraid of ending up like all the January 6 rioters who are still sitting in a D.C. jail.
Hyperbolic, misleading claims function as a permission structure for those who want to commit violence against LGBTQ people.
Much credit does go to the FBI and Justice Department for arresting and charging at least 1,000 people for their actions on January 6. Credit is also due to the legions of online sleuths who have spent months studying photos of the insurrectionists, piecing together identifying details that have led to hundreds of arrests. Because of these high-profile efforts, there's a real fear of consequences in the MAGA movement if they take more action against government officials on Trump's behalf. It's likely a major reason there's so much reluctance to take violent action now, no matter how much Trump unsubtly calls for it.
Still, while the threat of reactionary violence against the government is relatively low right now, that doesn't mean that the problem of right-wing political violence has subsided. There's good reason to believe that instead, all the anger and vitriol that is fueling the MAGA movement has been redirected, away from the mythical "deep state" that Trump rails against and towards softer targets like members of minority communities that have become demonized by so many far-right conspiracy theories.
The latest FBI hate crimes report was released earlier this month, showing that hate crimes after Trump lost the 2020 election reached the highest levels since the government started tracking them in the 90s. In 2021, there were almost 11,000 reported hate crimes, up from 8,000 the year before, a 12% rise. This is after years of hate crime numbers rising, making it pretty much indisputable that this is a direct response to the uptick in violent rhetoric from Trump and his acolytes. Studies have shown that counties that host Trump rallies, for instance, see exponential surges in hate crimes.
The groups who saw the biggest rise in being targets for hate crimes in 2021 were, unsurprisingly, the people who are most vilified by Trump and right-wing media. There's been a dramatic escalation in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on the right since Trump left office, with prominent figures in conservative media flinging around terms like "groomer" that insinuate LGBTQ people are a threat to children. The result in 2021 was a 70% rise in hate crimes against LGBTQ people. There's good reason to worry it got even worse in 2022, due to a mass shooting at a gay club in Colorado Springs in November 2022, as well as protests of drag shows that have sometimes become violent.
Despite the measurable effects of anti-queer hate speech, however, some of the most prominent figures in the Republican media machine have doubled down in recent months. The response to the mass shooting in Nashville, Tennessee on Monday is a troubling example.
Responding to conflicting reports about the shooter's gender identity, Fox News host Tucker Carlson unleashed a segment on Tuesday falsely claiming, "the trans movement is targeting Christians, including with violence."
Tucker Carlson: The trans movement is targeting Christians, including with violence. Most Christian leaders in this country don't want to admit that. Admitting it might force them to take deeply unfashionable positions. pic.twitter.com/PNzNBdgkoU
— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) March 29, 2023
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., made similarly false claims on Twitter, claiming "antifa" is organizing a "Trans Day of Vengeance." She previously blamed the mass shooting on trans acceptance, saying it causes "mental illness" and that guns are not the issue.
It's unlikely that Carlson or Greene, or their audiences, sincerely buy this rhetoric. Mass shootings are sadly common in the U.S. and nearly everyone is familiar with the fact that the vast majority of these murderers are cis men. The Violence Project doesn't even catalog non-conforming shooters because it's vanishingly rare.
But these kinds of hyperbolic, misleading claims function as a permission structure to those who want to commit violence against LGBTQ people. It creates a justification for those who commit hate crimes to claim it's somehow about defending themselves or others against supposed predators.
Trump was able to harness years of escalating right-wing paranoia and bellicose rhetoric, much of it coming from him, to gin up thousands of his followers to storm the Capitol on January 6. The insurrection failed, and it seems so far that the MAGA movement has largely given up on the idea that they can take over the American government in one targeted act of violence. But that doesn't mean the violent rage that fueled the Capitol attack has dissipated. It's being directed at election workers across the country, who have been subjected to an unprecedented number of threats and disruptions. It's manifested in a dramatic rise in assaults against abortion clinics. And it's resulted in this surge in hate crimes against racial minorities, Jews, and LGBTQ people.
Punching down tends to be the preference of authoritarians, whose big talk about their courage often falters in the face of real challenges. That's certainly true of Trump, who likes to make his threats from behind a phone and in the safe cocoon of Mar-a-Lago. The willingness of so many of the January 6 insurrectionists to live stream the riot or post pictures of themselves breaking the law to social media suggested that they did not take seriously the possibility of consequences for their actions. Now that they've been disabused of that assumption, due to the over 1,000 arrests, the target has shifted from the powerful federal government to some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
