An unwanted election result, meaning one where Donald Trump is not declared the winner, may be met with violence from the extreme right in the US, warns terrorism expert Jacob Ware.
Newspaper headlines and social media posts speak their clear language: Donald Trump and his associates warn of riots and bloodshed if the former president loses the election or becomes the target of further legal proceedings.
The arch-conservative former TV host Tucker Carlson, with tens of millions of followers, writes that the US is under attack by "illegal migrants". And the right-wing entrepreneur Elon Musk claims that President Joe Biden's strategy is to get as many "illegal" people into the US as possible – to "legalize" them and win the fall election (in reality, only citizens have the right to vote in US presidential elections, and the naturalization process takes many years).
Many of these statements aim to undermine the fall presidential election, which appears to be between Democrat Biden and Republican Trump – in the event that Donald Trump loses.
Together with terrorism researcher and professor Bruce Hoffman, he has just published the book "God, Guns, and Sedition" (approximately God, Firearms, and Sedition). In it, they explain the complex emergence of right-wing terrorism in modern US and the connection to the deadly storming of the Capitol and this year's election. It's a violent history with references to Christian rhetoric and white power theories.
2008 was a significant year, when the US was shaken by an economic crisis at the same time as the country's first black president, Barack Obama, was elected. The parallel growth of social media made it easier for hateful rhetoric to spread and intensify.
After the deadly right-wing extremist manifestation in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, former President Donald Trump spoke of "fine people on both sides", which made many extremists feel protected, Ware notes.
Expresident Trump's promise to pardon those who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, has further fueled this.
The notion that the congressional attack was justified is now circulating in extremist circles in groups such as Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, according to Ware. He describes the threat to the election as serious and says that from scare tactics at polling stations to larger acts are being discussed.
Jacob Ware is worried about democracy in the US. If Trump returns to the White House, it's possible that he will focus on political revenge, only appoint yes-men, dismantle parts of the government, and order violent raids on immigrants.
And if Joe Biden wins?
During the ongoing election campaign, Donald Trump has repeatedly faced criticism for rhetoric compared to that of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Like Hitler in his book "Mein Kampf", Trump has claimed that migrants "poison the blood" in the US.
Expresident Trump has likened political opponents to "hyenas" and in social media has published – and later deleted – a video with headlines about a "unified realm", approximately a united kingdom. This term is often used about the Nazi regime in Germany.
The US is a global trendsetter, and Ware fears that such extremism and violent rhetoric will spread.
The number of domestic terrorist attacks with right-wing extremist characteristics has increased steadily since 2005, according to the monitoring group Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Between 2005 and 2022, 74 such attacks were registered. 40 of them occurred between 2020 and 2022.
White power groups account for 45% of the latest years' right-wing extremist attacks. Anti-abortion activists and anti-government groups are also active, according to ADL.
58 people lost their lives in right-wing extremist terrorist attacks in the US between 2017 and 2022.
In 2022, the civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) registered 1,225 active hate and anti-government groups in the US.
On January 6, 2021, US congressional members gathered at the Capitol to count presidential election votes and formally elect Democrat Joe Biden as the next president.
At the same time, tens of thousands of supporters of Donald Trump gathered for a political rally. Trump repeated his false claims of widespread voter fraud and claimed he was the actual winner. He urged his supporters to go to Congress and "fight to the death".
Parts of the crowd did as he said. The protests turned violent when hundreds of people stormed the Capitol, clashed with police, vandalized, and entered one of the chambers.
Nine deaths can be linked to the storming, according to AP and over 700 charges have been filed. One of them is a federal charge against Donald Trump.
