Rachel Leingang
Mark Fuller of Titusville, Florida, shows his support for Trump on 31 May 2024.Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The posts are ominous.
“Pick a side, or YOU are next,” wrote conservative talkshow host Dan Bongino on the Truth Social media platform in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s 34 felony convictions.
The replies were even more so.
“Dan, seriously now,” one user wrote in response to Bongino. “I see no way out of all this mess without bloodshed. When you can rig an election, then weaponize the government and the courts against a former President, what other alternative is there? I’m almost 70 and would rather die than live in tyranny.”
That’s a common version of how many people on the US right reacted to the ex-president’s verdict, drawing on a “mirror world” where Trump is seen as the selfless martyr to powerful state forces and Joe Biden is the dangerous autocrat wielding the justice system as his own personal plaything and a threat to US democracy.
Calls for revenge, retribution and violence littered the rightwing internet as soon as Trump’s guilty verdict came down, all predicated on the idea that the trial had been a sham designed to interfere with the 2024 election. Some posted online explicitly saying it was time for hangings, executions and civil wars.
In this case, Trump was charged with falsifying documents related to a hush-money payment made to an adult film actor to keep an alleged affair out of the spotlight during the 2016 election – a form of election interference from a man whose platform lately consists largely of blaming others for election interference. The verdict has been followed by a backlash from his followers, those who for years chanted to lock up Trump’s political opponents, like Hillary Clinton.
On the left, the mood was downright celebratory, a brief interlude of joy that Trump might finally be held accountable for his actions. But there was an undercurrent of worry among some liberals, who saw the way these felonies could galvanize support for him.
On the right, in the alternate reality created by and for Trump and his supporters, the convictions are a sign of both doom and dogma – evidence that a corrupt faction runs the Joe Biden government, but that it can be driven out by the Trump faithful like themselves.
Trump’s allies in Congress want to use the federal government’s coffers to send a message to Biden that the verdict crosses a line, saying the jury’s decision “turned our judicial system into a political cudgel”. Some Senate Republicans vowed not to cooperate with Democratic priorities or nominees – effectively politicizing the government as recompense for what they claim is a politicization of the courts.
They echoed a claim Trump himself has repeatedly driven home to his followers: that his political opponents, namely Biden, are a threat to democracy, a rebrand of how Biden and Democrats often cast Trump. For his most ardent followers, the stakes of the 2024 election are existential, the idea that he might lose a cause for intense rhetoric and threats.
And, for some, the convictions provide another reason to take matters into their own hands during a time when support for using violence to achieve political goals is on the rise. Indictments against Trump fueled this support, surveys have shown.
Some rightwing media and commentators, like Bongino and the Gateway Pundit, displayed upside-down flags on social media, a sign of distress and a symbol among Trump supporters that recently made the news because one flew at US supreme court justice Samuel Alito’s home after the insurrection.
The terms “banana republic” and “kangaroo court” flew around, as did memes comparing Biden to Nazi or fascist leaders. Telegram channels lit up with posts about how the end of the US was solidified – unless Trump wins again in November.
“If we jail Trump, get rid of Maga, end the electoral college, ban voter ID, censor free speech, we’ll save democracy,” says one meme in a QAnon channel on Telegram that depicts Biden in a Nazi uniform with a Hitler mustache.
Tucker Carlson, the rightwing media heavyweight, waxed apocalyptic: “Import the third world, become the third world. That’s what we just saw. This won’t stop Trump. He’ll win the election if he’s not killed first. But it does mark the end of the fairest justice system in the world. Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your family.”
Trump’s supporters also opened their wallets, sending a “record-shattering” $34.8m in small-dollar donations to Trump’s campaign on Thursday, the Trump campaign claimed.
The massive haul came after Trump declared himself a “political prisoner” (he is not in prison) and declared justice “dead” in the US in a dire fundraising pitch.
“Their sick & twisted goal is simple: Pervert the justice system against me so much, that proud supporters like YOU will SPIT when you hear my name,” Trump’s campaign wrote. “BUT THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN! NOW IT’S TIME FOR ME & YOU TO SHOVE IT BACK IN THEIR CORRUPT FACES!”
The real verdict, Trump wrote on Truth Social, would come on 5 November. Posts calling 5 November a new “independence day” and comparing 2024 to 1776 – but a revolution not against the British, but among Americans for the control of the country – spread widely.
Misinformation and rumors spread as well, with the potential that these rumors could lead to further action by Republicans to avenge Trump.
In one viral claim, people say it’s not clear what crimes Trump even committed (the charges for falsifying documents are listed in detail in the indictment, and have been broken down piece by piece by the media). In another, posts claim the judge gave incorrect instructions to the jury before deliberations, which an Associated Press fact check deemed false.
Suggestions that the conviction was an “op” or a “psyop” – meaning a planned manipulation, a common refrain on the far right whenever something big happens – spread as well.
Talk quickly went to what Maga should do to stand up for Trump, and about how the verdict’s fans, and Democrats in general, would come to regret seeking accountability in the courts.
“This is going to be the biggest political backfire in US history,” the conservative account Catturd posted on Truth Social. “I’m feeling a tremendous seismic shift in the air.”
Kash Patel, a former Trump administration staffer and ally, suggested one way forward: Congress should subpoena the bank records of Merchan’s daughter, he said. The daughter became a frequent target throughout the trial – she worked as a Democratic consultant and has fundraised for Democratic politicians. Ohio senator JD Vance called for a criminal investigation into Merchan, and potentially his daughter, whom Vance said was an “obvious beneficiary of Merchan’s biased rulings”.
Patel also said prosecutor Alvin Bragg should be subpoenaed for any documents related to meetings with the Biden administration. “In case you need a jurisdictional hook- Bragg’s office receives federal funds from DOJ to ‘administer justice’- GET ON IT,” he wrote.
Megyn Kelly said Bragg should be disbarred, without offering a reason for what would justify it.
Some Trump allies sought to project calm amid the vitriol, saying they had known the verdict would come down as it did because the process had been rigged, and that people needed to keep focused on winning in November.
Steve Bannon, who himself is awaiting some time in prison for criminal contempt, said immediately after the verdict was released that it was “not going to damage President Trump at all”.
“It’s time to collect yourself and say, yes, we’ve seen what’s happened. We’ve seen how they run the tables in this crooked process. But you’ve got to say, hey, I’m more determined than ever to set things right.”
Opinion: The Very Real Threat of Right-Wing Leaders Cheering on Trump
David Rothkopf
Sat, June 1, 2024
Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images
One by one they offered their loyalty pledge to MAGA’s Dear Leader. One by one Republican leaders publicly placed fealty to Donald Trump ahead of loyalty to the United States or the oath they once had made to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
But they were not alone.
Other Trump supporters from around the world, including at least one who actively seeks to destroy the United States, not only expressed their support for the mob-boss-who-would-be-king, but did so with language uncannily like that of the MAGA chorus that offered lies and laments in response to the New York jury’s unanimous verdict to convict the former president.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov opined, “If we speak about Trump, the fact that there is simply the elimination… of political rivals by all possible means, legal and illegal, is obvious.” From Hungary’s wannabe authoritarian strongman Viktor Orbán: “Trump is a man of honor. As president he always put America first. (The American people) will make their verdict this November. Keep fighting Mr. President.” Italian deputy prime minister and leader of that country’s right wing movement, Matteo Salvini, proclaimed: “Solidarity and full support for (Trump), victim of judicial harassment… We are sadly familiar with the weaponization of the justice system by the left.” “Stay strong,” British right-wing firebrand Nigel Farage told his newly convicted friend.
The global right-wing movement is closely coordinated. Orbán’s regular visits to speak with CPAC illustrate this, as do Trump’s efforts to kowtow to Putin or break bread with the likes of Farage. They take their cues from each other. They use the same language. They are all “anti-woke.” And racist. And misogynist. And nationalist. And anti-democratic.
Recognizing how carefully orchestrated this chorus is offers an important insight that puts the Trump trial and the reaction to it in context much more important than the news media stories trying to divine how much the trial might impact poll results.
The assault on the rule of law that came from MAGA-world following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts was directly related to the assault on the rule of law being carried out by extremists on the U.S. Supreme Court (the place where the real politicization of our judiciary is happening).
The attack on our most hallowed institutions that came on Thursday and Friday from Republican Senators and Congresspeople, governors and flacks, after Trump’s conviction was no different from the institutional assault on the court by the Federalist Society or on Capitol Hill by the Jan. mob.
Attacks on America from within are directly linked to attacks on America—our ideas and ideals, our friends and allies—from overseas.
Putin attacks Ukraine as a step toward attacking NATO and weakening the West. And when he does he gets the support of Trump, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Tucker Carlson, and Mike Flynn, and the MAGA loonies. Orbán weakens Hungarian democracy and spreads antisemitic and anti-immigrant slurs and he is celebrated as a model by Trump, welcomed to Mar-a-Lago, lionized by the American right. Farage attacks the EU and Trump undercuts and degrades our allies and alliances. Putin and Trump both attack “fake news.”
It is, you see, all the same story. It is all one concerted, comprehensive, increasingly successful effort to destroy America and the institutions we have built since World War II from within and from without. And as you watch as our freedoms are stripped away, and as you read about Trump’s 2025 plan, and his desire to pull out of NATO and essentially leave Eastern Europe at the mercy of Putin, it should be clear that this global effort, this international right-wing movement, is positioned to do more damage to us and to our allies than did all the armies of Hitler, Mussolini, Japan, the Kaiser, or Soviet Russia and its satellite states.
It’s happening before our eyes. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is a conspiracy. It is not an imagined threat. It is real and it is taking a toll day-in and day-out from Kharkiv to the British consumers suffering due to the end of Brexit, and to the victims of the radicalized, anti-Constitutional decisions of our Supreme Court.
Should we not see it for what it is, should we make Trump the first felon elevated to the Oval Office, we will see much worse. We will not just be getting his corruption and racism; we will be inviting an entire global alliance of our bitterest enemies to take the helm of this country and ultimately seek—with ever greater resources and opportunities—to realize their dream of bringing us to our knees.
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