There Is No MAGA Movement Without Threats and Violence

The volcanic response to the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago is the latest escalation of pro-Trump intimidation

Yesterday, my friend and Atlantic colleague Peter Wehner published an ominous and prescient piece that highlighted the extraordinary spike in violent rhetoric after the FBI search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. Later that morning, an armed man named Ricky Walter Shiffer tried to enter the FBI’s Cincinnati office, an act that triggered a chase and a firefight that ultimately killed him. He had reportedly been at the Capitol on January 6.

While I monitored reports about the attack on the FBI, I also read that Temple Beth David had canceled its beachside Shabbat service after one of its congregants, Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart—the judge who reportedly issued the Trump search warrant—faced an avalanche of online threats.

Keep in mind that the attack, the threats, and the violent rhetoric all happened without the perpetrators possessing any concrete knowledge of the underlying legal or evidentiary reasons for the FBI’s search. The mere existence of the search was deemed sufficient reason for an instant, unified, volcanic right-wing response. And in the Trump era, pro-Trump threats and violence follow pro-Trump rage like night follows day.

It’s been more than seven years since Trump rode down the escalator at Trump Tower and launched his presidential campaign, and in spite of millions of words of commentary about Trump and his movement; countless images of angry, armed Trumpist protesters; and a horrifying, violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, I’ve found that many people still don’t understand the extent to which violence and menace are both indispensable and organic to the MAGA movement.

Hidden behind headline-grabbing incidents such as Capitol attacks and assaults on the FBI are a staggering number of threats. Writing in The Dispatch, Georgetown University professor Paul Miller tells the tale:

Death threats have surged across the country. As terrorists realize death threats work, they are using them more often—including against Republicans who voted for President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package. Death threats to congressmen doubled by May of last year, compared to the year before. “These are not one-off incidents,” according to Vox, “Surveys have found that 17 percent of America’s local election officials and nearly 12 percent of its public health workforce have been threatened due to their jobs during the 2020 election cycle and Covid-19 pandemic.” Reuters tracked more than 850 individual threats against local election workers by Trump supporters last year, up from essentially zero in previous elections.

No one should think that political violence and death threats are exclusive to the political right, especially after a man was arrested for allegedly trying to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh and after a series of firebombings at pro-life pregnancy centers. Moreover, there are tens of millions of Trump voters who abhor violence and violent rhetoric. Many of them—ensconced in right-wing news bubbles or disconnected from daily politics—don’t even know what is done in Trump’s name.

But the sheer scale of the threats and attacks from the right is deeply alarming. A Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis charted a sharp increase in right-wing terror attacks during the Trump era. And even though left-wing terror attacks increased sharply in 2021, there were still more right-wing attacks, and the right-wing attacks were far more lethal. There were 30 terror fatalities in 2021; 28 of them were the responsibility of terrorists on the right.

Statistics, however, don’t fully communicate what it’s like to run afoul of MAGA America. To confront the fury of the Trump right is to confront both messaging and menace. The messaging is a relentless litany of grievances and moral equivalencies. What about Hillary Clinton? What about Hunter Biden? What about the Carter Page FISA warrant?

In a reasonable political environment, unified political messaging is manageable. It’s normal. We’ve seen partisans close ranks before. But this is not a reasonable environment. Push back, and the menace arrives—and if you’re lucky, it’s only a shrieking online mob. If you’re a member of the media or a public official, it’s simply a matter of time before the escalation becomes seriously troubling.

I know this reality all too well. We’re coming up on the seventh anniversary of September 17, 2015, when MAGA white nationalists first targeted my family. Since that time, we’ve been threatened, doxxed, and harassed. We’ve faced online and offline confrontations that can be both terrifying and infuriating, including personal confrontations at the Communion table at church and in the pews right after services.

And then, when you tell these stories, the menace escalates all the more.

There’s also the much less dangerous but always painful risk to personal relationships. Across red America, there are stories of fathers, sons, mothers, and daughters who know that there are things they simply can’t say if they want to keep family and friends together. So good people back away. They check out.

The end result is a miserable political culture, one that preserves Trump’s base in part because it tolerates no dissent. But just as it preserves Trump’s high political floor, it lowers his political ceiling. Most Americans don’t want any part of the cruelty and lies.

Earlier this week, my former National Review colleague Kevin Williamson cataloged the litany of MAGA political failures. It turns out that menace hasn’t worked. Yes, Trump beat an unpopular Hillary Clinton, but he couldn’t capitalize on a unified Republican government, and he lost the House, Senate, and White House faster than any president since Herbert Hoover. Many of his friends and allies face profound legal problems, and extremist and eccentric MAGA nominees are poised to throw away a number of key (and very winnable) races for Senate and governor.

We don’t know when Trump will finally exit American politics. But after seven years, we know this much: There is no MAGA movement without threats and violence, and the longer he stays in politics, the more he tears the American social fabric, and the more dangerous politics becomes.