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Experts tell USA TODAY their best estimate of extremist activity related to the election
American voters are concerned about the violence that will erupt after the elections
A recent poll found that many Americans are concerned about the possibility of political violence and attempts to overturn the election results.
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The threat of political violence, intimidation and insurrection has skyrocketed in the online extremist ecosystem in recent weeks, powered by a network of conspiracy theorists, disinformation peddlers and propagandists.
With tensions and rhetoric sky-high, experts who monitor domestic extremists say they are waiting for what many say will be an inevitable post-election violent confrontation, possibly along the lines of the Jan. 6 insurrection. But how, where or when such an event will occur remains unclear, they said, and much depends on the outcome of the election.
More than a dozen experts on violent domestic extremism consulted by USA TODAY said they are keeping a close eye on extremists’ online chatter and organization, seeing how stories develop and keeping an eye on anything that has a potential flash point seems. But they also noted that 2024 is different from 2020, and that in some ways this could help limit the possibility of political violence.
The groups and communities that helped organize the January 6 uprising remain largely fragmented, if not entirely abandoned, and have been largely invisible in public for years. Former President Donald Trump, while still drawing large crowds, has no track record of organizing mass protests beyond 2020. And perhaps most crucially, disgruntled members of the far right have not yet taken to the streets in the same way they did in the run-up to the 2020 election, says Megan Squire, deputy director of data analytics at Southern Poverty. Law Center.
“I don’t see right-wing groups on the ground in large numbers going to anti-mask, anti-vax, neo-Confederate rallies; I don’t see them putting each other’s numbers in their phones; they don’t show up at events and learn to trust each other; I don’t see any organized groups holding nightly fundraisers to purchase body armor and transportation equipment,” Squire said. “It’s a completely different landscape.”
Could another January 6 happen?
One possibility for political violence in the aftermath of the elections is a repeat of the violent uprising of January 6. But experts said Washington DC is unlikely to see a repeat of the Capitol riot, which left one protester killed by police and led to more than 1,400 arrests.
In the country’s capital, police and security forces will be on full alert for any action plans on January 6, said Colin P. Clarke, research director at the Soufan Group, a global intelligence consultancy.
“The show of deterrence will be so overwhelming that only a fool would go for it in force,” Clarke said. “We have a lot of fools in this country, but it won’t be as organized and able to overwhelm defenses as we saw in 2021.”
A more likely scenario that worries extremism observers is that a close election takes place while votes are still being counted in the days after November 5.
Conspiracy theorists and their extremist allies could identify one or more local vote-counting centers in swing states and prompt angry Trump supporters to target them with civil disobedience or violence, said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
“If anything is going to be hot and heavy, it’s going to be because the election is dragging on,” Beirich said. “Where angry MAGA people and maybe some bad actors like white supremacists go to an election center and start accusing fraud.”
Clarke agreed.
Such a scenario could play out in several states, he said, rather than in the nation’s capital.
“Rather than a January 6-type mass incident, I’m afraid we’ll see a number of smaller incidents at local polling stations, which will become a cascade effect of people saying, ‘You have to get out there, you have to get out. stop people from stealing this election,” Clarke said. “That way it becomes more of a death by a thousand paper cuts than a single major event.”
Threats of political violence by lone attackers
Regardless of organized acts of political violence, some extremism experts remain deeply concerned about individual acts of post-election violence by members of the far left or far right.
Recent history has shown that far-right extremists are more likely to become disgruntled and commit political violence in the wake of Trump’s loss, said Jared Holt, senior research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
Holt said Trump fans with a propensity for violence have been lulled into a sense of calm and an expectation of vindication by Trump’s often angry and confrontational campaign. Just as adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory waited for a coming “storm” of criminal and political retaliation against their enemies if Trump came to power, many election fraud conspiracy theorists believe that Trump will soon come to power and end decades of corruption clean up. said.
If Trump loses, especially in a tight race, those same conspiracy-minded extremists may decide to take matters into their own hands, Holt said.
“This is a movement that preaches to its followers that their political opponents are not just people who think differently than you, but represent some kind of existential — even satanic and evil — threat to your security,” Holt said. “People who are animated by these beliefs may feel compelled to act on them.
The same could be true if Trump wins the presidency, but of agitators on the far left, Clarke warned.
Anti-fascists and anarchists have expressed a desire to avenge a Trump victory, Clarke said.
“Violence from the left has historically not been nearly as deadly, but anarchists and Antifa people have said they see a Trump victory as an existential threat and are willing to go further than in the past,” he said.
Proud Boys, Oath Keepers are unlikely to play a role
One thing the extremism experts consulted by USA TODAY agree on is that the major groups that played a role in political violence through Jan. 6 are shadows of their former selves today and are unlikely to that they will be big players this year if there is any disruption.
Members of the Proud Boys street gang, for example, have rarely been seen in public in the past two years, Holt said. People wearing Proud Boys colors have occasionally been spotted at Trump rallies, but the group appears to have shrunk to a few disgruntled and anonymous Telegram channels, with little of the influence it once had, he said.
Leaders of the Oath Keepers, a self-described “militia” that once counted thousands of current and former police and military personnel, were jailed on January 6 on seditious conspiracy charges for their role. Since their demise, the group has fallen. Beyond that, experts who track armed far-right movements told USA TODAY. And the same can be said for other self-styled militias, none of which have caught fire in the same way the Oath Keepers once did, Squire said.
Simply put, the extremism landscape in 2024 is very different than in 2020, Squire said. That means experts monitoring that landscape need to evolve their thinking and their methods and be open to what potential threats will look like in the days and weeks ahead.
“That’s not to say nothing will happen, but it won’t look the same,” Squire said. “So we shouldn’t use the script from last time.”