What Will Be MAGA World's Reaction Once Trump is Indicted?
Public response to Trump indictments centers on timing. The closer to the 2024 elections, the greater the risk of violence.
Two years ago, I wrote in the Washington Monthly: “Will America soon have its first Shawshank President? Will Donald Trump find himself fending off riots in the Attica mess hall? Tweetless and at the mercy of 2,000 ‘angry Democrat’ inmates?”
As the law closes in on our former crook-in-chief, speculation intensifies as to whether he’ll find himself in the slammer. I’m doubtful. But what increasingly preoccupies me is the reaction of his fanatical followers when the first indictments are handed down. Will they spark a wave of violence and domestic terrorism, first shots in the much feared Civil War, Act II? Or, as Trump’s star wanes, will the MAGAverse merely shrug and move on, perhaps belting out a few more F-bombs, while deciding whether their support shifts over to COVID-loving Ron DeSantis, insurrection shape-shifter Ted Cruz, or perhaps fist-waving sedition caucus charter member Josh Hawley?
Well, everybody should be paying attention now. At a Texas rally last week, Trump not dog-whistled, but bull-horned:
If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere, because our country and our elections are corrupt.
They’re trying to put me in jail. These prosecutors are vicious, horrible people. They’re racists and they’re very sick. They’re mentally sick. They’re going after me without any protection of my rights by the Supreme Court or most other courts.
Yes, he’s summoning another insurrection — only this time nationwide — as soon as prosecutors levy formal charges. If he returns as president, Trump also said he would pardon the January 6 insurrectionists. According to Just Security’s Litigation Tracker, there are more than 20 active lawsuits against Trump, both civil and criminal. Trump is facing, unprecedentedly, two coordinated teams of rigorous investigators combing through his financial affairs, potentially resulting in indictments. Like a cornered rat, if Trump feels he has nothing to lose as he faces massive financial penalties and jail time, who can doubt he will summon his MAGAhead followers into the streets to carry out widespread violence against federal targets: courts, judges, prosecutors, politicians, Congress again?
The Department of Homeland Security warns that potential domestic right-wing violence constitutes “a national threat priority for the United States.” The Justice Department is forming a new domestic terrorism unit to counter this growing threat. Its new chief, Matthew Olsen, laid out the threat in a January 11 congressional hearing:
Based on the assessment of the Intelligence Community, we face an elevated threat from domestic violent extremists — that is, individuals in the United States who seek to commit violent criminal acts in furtherance of domestic social or political goals. Domestic violent extremists are often motivated by a mix of ideologies and personal grievances. We have seen a growing threat from those who are motivated by racial animus, as well as those who ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies.
Trump is signaling he plans to harness this QAnon-driven force of rabid anti-government nihilists, if need be, in a götterdämmerung with his nemeses — those who uphold and enforce the rule of law. And we must take him deadly seriously. After all, he tried this once before, on 1/6/21. “I think what we've learned from the Trump presidency, and the behavior of his allies, is not to ever dismiss what they are seeking to do,” said Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD).
One can imagine, in his muddled brain, Trump envisages Operation Götterdämmerung playing out in the following way:
On the verge of being indicted, Trump addresses a rally, repeating the charges he made in Texas, claiming to be the victim of another “Democrat witch hunt” and calling for “the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere, because our country and our elections are corrupt.”
MAGA-troopers take to the streets in various cities, waving Trump banners and “Stop the Frame-up” signs. State capitols are assaulted. The homes of judges, prosecutors, election officials and federal and state politicians are attacked. Some are seriously injured or killed. Barriers go up again around the U.S. Capitol, but homemade bombs go off at other targets in D.C. and other cities. Militias, heavily armed, carry out domestic attacks as well. Federal law enforcement make mass arrests and counterattack militarized demonstrators. The National Guard is mobilized. Trump urges sympathizers in police and reserve military ranks not to carry out orders to quell far-right militants.
In Trump’s mind, his assault forces create enough fear and chaos to compel politicians and the government to back down. He may even fantasize a successful coup this time, with Biden turned out of the White House in a Mussolini-style March on Rome scenario ending with him, and Melania, comfortably re-ensconced inside the executive mansion, but this time as an American Putin. Yes, Trump is that delusional. In a statement yesterday, he plainly asserted Mike Pence “could have overturned the election.”
That’s the doomsday scenario. Now let’s look at what I believe is a more realistic play of events:
Leaks to the media indicate imminent indictments coming from the Manhattan DA and/or New York AG Letitia James. Trump calls for mass protests. MAGA protestors demonstrate in various cities. Lots of sound and fury, but no countrywide mass uprising of latter-day American Falangists out to overthrow the government. Some isolated cases of domestic terrorism occur; many others are aborted through the outstanding interventions of law enforcement. Rather than a March on Rome scenario, Trump is escorted before a judge to face justice.
You see, though it’s in the early stages, the country is gradually moving on from Trump.
A recent Associated Press survey shows that 44 percent of Republicans do not want Trump to run again for president. And an NBC News poll in January found that 56 percent of Republicans now describe themselves more as favoring the Republican Party, as opposed to 36 percent who say they first and foremost support Trump. Those favoring Trump had accounted for 54 percent of Republican voters in October 2020. Loss of support covers every demographic: men and women, moderates and conservatives, young and older.
Danger of civil strife nonetheless remains. Public response to Trump indictments centers on timing. Jay Ulfelder, a research fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School who studies protest movements in the United States, told me:
I expect that the right’s reaction to an indictment or conviction of Trump would depend significantly on the timing. If Trump runs for president again and an indictment or conviction comes down as the 2024 election approaches, then I imagine the reaction would be intense, because the legal action would play into right-wing conspiratorial thinking about liberal and Deep State plots against Trump and conservatives and self-styled “patriots” more generally. In this scenario, it wouldn’t be the focus on Trump so much as the continuation of the broader Stop the Steal narrative that would get people riled up (with boosting from the usual array of foundations and other donors). And, as we saw on January 6 and continue to see in various local settings, many right-wingers have come to see violence as a legitimate response to what they see as usurpations of their political power and freedom to do as they please.
If an indictment and trial or settlement comes earlier, though, my guess is that it won’t catalyze much additional activism. At this point, the view of Trump as a martyr who is being unfairly persecuted is already baked into the right-wing narrative, and Donald Trump the individual does not stand at the center of the movement any more. In this scenario, reaction to an indictment would probably still be a big talking point for a while, but I doubt it would inspire an outburst of activism or violence.
Now here’s the wild card. Don’t rest easy just yet. The flip side of Republicans turning steadily from Trump the man to Trumpism as a vessel into which to channel their rage and anger is the coalescence of a radical right movement per se. As I wrote about the future of Trumpism in the Washington Monthly last October:
Political scientists notice a disturbing trend: Republicans aren’t running away from the perverse brand of politics Trump unleashed; they are doubling down on it… We are witnessing a dangerous trend toward militancy on the right. Trumpism is transforming right-wing populism into a more aggressive neofascist movement.
So, just as right-wing populism transforms itself from a personality cult to a more cohesive movement, the threat remains high. Support for Trump shifts increasingly from him toward focus on pet issues: white grievance, anti-elitism, anti-globalism, anti-immigration and anti-diversity. That plus 400 million weapons provide for a volatile mix.
Did Trump just announce that Putin gets all of Ukraine? Is Putin negotiating with the Next Guy?
Scarey thoughts... but necessary. Thanks.