Political violence has reached alarming levels in the US over the last few years.
The January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol, the attack on former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, and multiple assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump are all examples of America’s increasingly polarized and perilous environment.
Now, the 2024 election could cause another flare-up, especially if Trump loses. Discussion of violence among right-wing extremists has already spiked online, and unlike Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump has refused to say that he would concede.
The polls show a tight race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, suggesting that this time, as in 2020, the results may be decided by narrow margins in a few battleground states. Trump has been priming Republican voters to reject the results if he comes up short, making unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud in Pennsylvania and noncitizens voting on a widespread basis. Billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk has also set up a platform on his social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, for users to “share potential incidents of voter fraud or irregularities you see while voting in the 2024 election.”
Those tactics seem to be working. If Trump loses, about a quarter of Republicans said they think he should do whatever it takes to ensure he becomes president anyway, according to a September PRRI poll.
That may include resorting to violence. Among Republicans who don’t believe Biden’s win in 2020 was legitimate, almost one-third said in an August poll by the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University that they expected “a lot” or “a great deal” of political violence after the November election. More recent polls have found similar results, including an October AP-NORC poll that found 27 percent of Republicans, and 42 percent of voters overall, “extremely” or “very” worried about post-election violence.
All of this has put law enforcement and national security officials on high alert about political violence in the days before and after the election. Earlier this month, a joint Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FBI intelligence bulletin said that domestic extremists “pose a threat of violence to a range of targets directly and indirectly associated with elections through at least the presidential inauguration” on January 20.
What kind of political violence might break out?
Some incidents of political violence have already been recorded in the runup to Election Day.
Ballots in mailboxes and drop boxes in Massachusetts, Arizona, Washington, and Oregon have been damaged in suspected arson. DHS warned this might happen, based on its monitoring of comments made online in domestic violent extremist circles. In a series of security bulletins in the last few months, the agency noted, “Some threat actors may perceive ballot drop boxes as ‘soft targets’ because they are more accessible” and that some of these actors had discussed a variety of methods for damaging them.
A man was also indicted on terrorism and gun charges for allegedly shooting at the Democratic National Committee’s offices in Phoenix on three occasions since September.
Things might only get worse from here. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco has warned that the US is “facing an unprecedented level of, and increase in, threats of violence against public officials.”
According to the DHS bulletins, there is a “heightened risk” that domestic violent extremists could “attempt to initiate civil war.” That kind of chatter has become increasingly common in online spaces frequented by right-wing extremist groups. That said, the DHS noted that the prosecutions of those involved in the January 6 insurrection and hesitation about potential false flag operations designed to entrap them could serve as deterrents.
Law enforcement officials across the country are bracing for the possibility of escalation, particularly in Democratic population centers. For instance, Detroit’s election headquarters have reportedly been reinforced with bulletproof glass and will be protected by armed guards after Trump supporters tried to interrupt ballot counting by chanting “Stop the count” and banging on the windows in 2020. Philadelphia election staff will count ballots in a warehouse encircled by a fence with barbed wire, miles from the downtown area where protesters gathered in 2020.
Ultimately, however, these preparations might not be enough to quell domestic violent extremist activity when Republican leaders are encouraging skepticism about the integrity of the election and are reportedly making secret plans to assure a second Trump term.
“Being aware of the potential for violence and damage to the institutions we rely upon is important,” retired Gen. Joseph Votel, an executive board member of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a statement. “But it is insufficient in the face of legislative acts that are open to broad interpretation, strong political rhetoric that dominates the public information space, and imperfect individuals acting in accordance with their oaths.”