All the terrorists listed below openly proclaimed themselves to be not simply Trump supporters, but motivated to commit terrorism based on being incited to by Trump. Most also were publicly defended by Trump.
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The first attack by pro Trump terrorists was over a year before the 2016 election. Scott and Steven Leader beat with metal poles and urinated on a 58 year old Latino homeless man in Boston in August 2015 and told cops, “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.” Trump publicly defended them as “very passionate,” smiling while hearing about the crime, and while he cheered it.
Second: Nicholas Tavella attacked a fellow student at Penn State for being Indian in December 2015, choking him and threatening to shoot him. He told police he was “racially profiling” him as “suspicious.”
Third: William Celli built a pipe bomb and threatened the mass murder of Muslims at a mosque in Richmond, California. On Facebook he wrote all Muslims should be kicked out and vowed, “I’ll follow this MAN (Trump) to the end of the world.”
Fourth: John Roos, a Trump supporter from Medford, Oregon, threatened to kill Barack Obama and FBI agents on Facebook and Twitter in January 2016. He called Trump “the savior of America” Police found pipe bombs at his home.
Fifth: John McGraw assaulted a Black protester at a Trump rally in March 2016 Fayetteville, North Carolina. McGraw said, “Next time we see him, we might have to kill him.” Trump cheered the assault and said he would pay legal fees, but did not.
Sixth: Tony Pettway punched a protester at a Trump rally in Phoenix, then stomped
on him on the ground. Trump called the victim “a disgusting guy.”
Seventh: Neo Nazi Matthew Heimbach attacked a Black protester at a Trump rally in Louisville in March 2016. Trump had just yelled, “Get them out of here!” at protests. Heimbach wore a MAGA cap. At his trial Heimbach said he, “acted pursuant to the directives and requests of Donald J Trump.”
Eighth: Henry Slapnik threatened his Black neighbors with a knife in June 2016
Cleveland. He told police, “Donald Trump will fix them because they are scared of Donald Trump.”
Ninth: White supremacist Daniel Rowe stabbed a mixed race couple in August 2016 in Olympia, Washington. Rowe told cops he, “took a blood oath to fight on the street” and “planned on heading down to the next Donald Trump rally and stomping out more of the Black Lives Matter group.”
Tenth: In Bordentown, New Jersey, in September 2016, Police Chief Frank Nucera slammed a Black teenager’s head into a door during an arrest, yelling racist slurs and “Donald Trump is the last hope for white people!”
Eleventh: Thomas Vellanti attacked three protesters at a Trump rally in Asheville in September 2016.
Twelfth: Emirjeta Xhelili attacked two Muslim women in Brooklyn in September 2016. She tried to rip off the women’s hijabs and screamed, “Get the fuck out of America, bitches!” On Facebook, she praised Trump, calling herself “Mary MAGAdelene” and “YOU ANTI TRUMP, YOU ANTI AMERICA!!”
Thirteenth: Mark Feigin was arrested with 15 guns and thousands of ammo rounds in September 2016 in Los Angeles for threatening to kill people at the Islamic Center of Southern California on his social media and the center’s, with messages such as, “Death upon those who oppose Trump.”
Fourteenth: Todd Warnken threatened a Black woman in October 2016 in Albany, New York. He yelled, “Trump is going to win and if you don’t like it I’m going to beat your ass!” and “You niggers had your time! Your eight years are up!”
Fifteenth: David Smith of the group Gays For Trump attacked a protester at a Trump rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, in October 2016. Trump ranted that the victim Dunham of showed, “total disrespect for the American flag.”
Sixteenth: Curtis Allen, Patrick Stein and Gavin Wright AKA “the Crusaders” plotted to blow up an apartment complex where Muslim, mostly Somali, immigrants lived in Garden City, Kansas, in November 2016. During their trial, they requested jurors from a pro-Trump area. Their attorneys said the militia feared Obama would not allow Trump to take office if he won.
Seventeenth: In November 2016, in Grand Rapids, Jacob Holtzlander beat a Black taxi driver, an Ethiopian immigrant, while shouting, “Trump!” and racist epithets.
Eighteenth: Elizabeth and Marc Hokoana attacked protesters outside a speech by white supremacist and male supremacist Milo Yiannopulos in Seattle in January 2017. Elizabeth shot one protester while Marc pepper sprayed the crowd.
Nineteenth: Robin Rhodes attacked a Muslim woman and airline employee at the Worcester airport in January 2017, shouting, “Fuck Islam! Fuck ISIS! Trump is here now! He will get rid of all of you!”
Twentieth: Alexandre Bissonette murdered six Muslims and wounded six more using an assault rifle to attack worshippers in a mosque in Quebec City in January 2017. At trial he was shown to be checking Trump’s Twitter feed every day and took photos of himself in a MAGA hat. He told cops he hated Muslims and was motivated by Canada’s government decision to allow in more refugees, itself a direct response to the first of seven attempts by Trump at his infamous Muslim ban.
Twenty-first: Brandon Davis attacked a gay couple in Key West in February 2017, ramming them with his scooter, screaming, “You guys are fags! You’re in Trump country now! You voted for that bitch Hillary!”
Twenty-second: Kyle Chapman attacked protesters with a lead filled cane in Berkeley in March 2017 during a Trump rally.
Twenty-third: Kenneth Sjarpe tried to run over three Syrian men in Bellevue, Washington in May 2017, yelling, “I’ll kill you, I’ll shoot you, go back home you Muslim shit!” A week later he attacked an Ethiopian man, following him into his thrift shop, yelling “I want you guys out of my country, you nigger! If you don’t leave, I’ll make you disappear!” He returned two more days in a row, screaming epithets about “people from India.” He told police, “The Iranians, Indians, Middle Easterners, they shouldn’t be in our country. They’re taking our jobs. I support Trump keeping them out.”
Twenty-fourth: In May 2017, an unknown man repeatedly threatened to lynch Black congressman Al Green of Texas for trying to impeach Trump, saying, “Lynch all you fucking niggers, you’ll be hanging from a tree.”
Twenty-fifth: Amber Hensley threatened to kill three Muslim women in a Walmart in Fargo, North Dakota, in July 2017. She pointed to her Trump bumper sticker on her car while yelling, “We’re going to kill all of ya! We’re going to kill every single one of you fucking Muslims!”
Twenty-sixth: Louis Travieso attacked two men and a woman in Washington DC, for a comment about his MAGA cap, beating one in the face 20 times while holding him down.
Twenty-seventh: A series of terrorist crimes on August 2017 in the notorious Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
Neo Nazi James Field killed anti racist protester Heather Heyer by plowing his car through a crowd. He hit another van, also sending it into the crowd. Then he put the car in reverse for three blocks and ran over more people. The car was spattered with blood. 35 other people were injured by him, including five in critical condition.
Neo Nazi Jacob Goodwin, Tyler Davis of the white supremacist League of the South, Alex Ramos of the far right vigilantes III% Security Force, and two others beat a Black protester with clubs and shields, giving him spinal injuries, a concussion, and a broken wrist. Ramos wore a MAGA cap, pepper sprayed protesters, and bragged about “kicking some ass.”
Imperial Wizard of the KKK Richard Preston fired a gun at a Black protester while screaming “Nigger!” at him.
Neo Nazi Dennis Mothersbaugh beat two protesters, one a woman, while police stood by. Mothersbaugh came to court in a “God, Guns & Trump” shirt.
In the face of a public uproar condemning neo Nazism, Trump immediately claimed to, “condemn hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides.” In other words, a multiracial crowd of anti racist protesters was just as hateful as Nazis and Klansmen. Trump’s speech argued that antiracists, many of them white, were actually somehow anti white. This is a longstanding white supremacist argument.
Even more infamously, Trump claimed there were “very fine people on both sides.” In other words, the almost entirely peaceful anti racist protesters were morally equivalent to Nazis, militias, and Klansmen who murdered one and injured dozens, some of them critically, including police.
Trump’s statement came from his openly white nationalist adviser, the notorious Steve Bannon. Trump was the only national figure to blame the almost entirely peaceful anti racist protesters. Almost everyone in his own party repeatedly condemned him. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch recalled his brother’s death fighting Nazis as a US soldier. Conservative David French of the National Review called for Bannon to be fired.
But white supremacists were thrilled by Trump’s blaming anti racists and knew his token “condemnation” of racists was empty and insincere. The second most famous white racist leader after Trump, David Duke, said, “Remember it was white Americans who put you in the presidency.”
Nazi leader Andre Anglin also cheered with approval. "He refused to even mention anything to do with us. When reporters were screaming at him about White Nationalism he just walked out of the room.”
Trump reluctantly made a second tepid and insincere statement. Again, no one was fooled. White nationalist Richard Spencer sneered at it. “His statement today was more kumbaya nonsense,.. Only a dumb person would take those lines seriously.”
So Trump made a third statement. This time it was to insist the white nationalists were not all white nationalists, that the crowds of them chanting, “Jews will not replace us!” were somehow, once again, “very fine people.”
Then in the same speech, Trump launched into an extended defense of Confederate monuments, built by white supremacists explicitly to defend white supremacy (even inscribed so on many of them), and that Americans should not “change culture.” The remainder of his remarks attacked a nonexistent “very violent alt left.” Bannon, newly fired, responded with admiration that Trump chose to stand with “his people,” other white supremacists.
Over 60 Republicans and Democrats in Congress condemned Trump, many arguing he should be impeached. Several magazines showed Trump in KKK robes. So Trump went on to make a fourth and a fifth statement, both of them not condemning racist terrorists, but defending the Confederacy and attacking “taking away our culture.” To everyone else, it was clear the “our” and the “culture” being referred to was of white racists only, not America or all Americans.
Almost three dozen businessmen, nearly all conservatives, resigned from Trump’s government in protest. Black businessman Kenneth Frazier was the first. He was condemned by Trump less than an hour later in strong unequivocal terms, as a “rip off” who “took away American jobs.” Many noted that, by contrast, it took two days for Trump to make his half hearted, by the motion, and widely not believed statements on Nazis that actually blamed the victims of racist terrorism.
Twenty-eighth: Three members of the white supremacist White Rabbit militia, Michael Hari, Joe Morris, and Michael McWhorter bombed the Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota in August 2017. They timed the bomb to go off as worshippers gathered, but luckily it exploded later.
Hari falsely claimed Al Qaeda were training at the mosque. The group also tried and failed to firebomb an abortion clinic in Champaign, Illinois. Hari also submitted his own $10 billion proposal to build Trump’s border wall. A video said the wall would “defend their nation and its Anglo-Saxon heritage, western culture and English language. Make America Great Again.”
Nazi sympathizer Sebastian Gorka, an assistant to Trump, claimed it was all a false flag operation by leftists to make the right wing, like himself, look bad.
Twenty-nineth: Stephen Taubert of Syracuse, New York threatened to murder Barack Obama and Black congresswoman Maxine Waters during telephone calls to congressional offices in 2017 and 2018. He specifically wanted to lynch Obama. Taubert defended himself in court that he was angry with “people knocking the president. He’s a good person and he’s done a lot for this country.”
Thirtieth: Morris May pepper sprayed an anti racist protester at a “Stand Against Hate” rally in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in September 2017. He wore a MAGA shirt and screamed, “I hate liberals! I hate you people!”
Thirty-first: Anthony Lloyd threatened to murder Black congresswoman Maxine Waters in October 2017. He left a threat, “If you continue to make threats towards the president, you’re going to wind up dead, Maxine, ‘cause we’ll kill you.” Lloyd told police he was a “pro-president supporter. If you make a move on my president your ass is in trouble, it’s all over.”
Thirty-second: After Trump called CNN “fake news” January 7, 2018, Brandon Griesemer threatened to kill CNN employees almost two dozen times only two days later. He made 22 telephone calls to the station’s offices in Atlanta on January 9 and 10. Among his threats, “Fake news, I’m coming to gun you all down” and “I have a gun and I am coming to Georgia right now.”
Thirty-third: Nicholas Bukoski threatened to murder Black Senator Kamala Harris and Jewish Senator Bernie Sanders in March 2018. “Senator, I would watch your back… You wouldn’t want to be caught off guard when I use my second amendment protected firearm to rid the world of you.” He told cops he’s “very supportive of the current president” and watches Fox News at least eight hours a day.
Thirty-fourth: The first of over a dozen terrorist attacks by Q Anon, a conspiracy begun explicitly to defend Trump and keep him in power. Q Anon claims that opposition to Trump is coming from a cabal of Satanic, Democratic Party, Hollywood, and Jewish pedophiles who kidnap children and keep them in pizza parlors for wealthy elites to rape, murder, and harvest their blood. Supposedly Trump is about to mass arrest the pedophiles, and any investigations or accounts of Trump’s crimes are lies put out by Satanists.
Matthew Wright blockaded a bridge near the Hoover Dam with an armored car for over 90 minutes, carrying two assault rifles and demanding mass arrests. He repeatedly wrote to Trump after his jailing.
Thirty-fifth: Radio host Bill Deagle repeatedly vowed on his show to murder anyone heckling Trump supporters. In June 2018, Deagle said “They’re going to die.” “They’re going to get death.” “Blow them away and put them in a box.”
Thirty-sixth: Robert Chain threatened to murder Boston Globe reporters over a dozen times. In August 2018, he repeated Trump’s rants that journalists are the enemy of the people. He told a Globe employee, “I’m going to shoot you in the fucking head later today.”
Thirty-seventh: Three members of the white nationalist terrorist Proud Boys, Max Hare, John Kinsman, David Kuriakose beat a protester in New York in August 2018. All wore MAGA caps during the attack.
Thirty-eighth: Carl Pacheco tried to stab a woman leaving comedian Kathy Griffin’s show in Houston in August 2018. Pacheco was angry she mocked his MAGA cap and t shirt.
Thirty-nineth: Scott Haven made almost three dozen threats to murder two senators and a congressman in September 2018. Haven screamed, “Democrats are trying to destroy Trump’s presidency!” “Tell the son of a bitch we are coming to hang the fucker!” “I’m going to shoot him in the head! I’m going to do it now!” “I would like to slice the Senator’s head off!”
Fortieth: One of the more notorious terrorists, Cesar Sayoc sent 16 homemade bombs to Trump’s critics Obama, Hillary Clinton, Biden, three Black senators Cory Booker, Maxine Waters, and Kamala Harris, two businessmen, two ex intelligence agency directors, an ex attorney general, actor Robert De Niro, and CNN in October 2018. He told cops he “found light in Donald J. Trump” and “prominent Democrats were actively working to hurt him, other Trump supporters and the country as a whole.”
When the FBI arrested Sayoc, his van was covered in images of Trump. It also had images of Hillary Clinton, Obama, film maker Michael Moore, CNN anchor Van Jones, and Green Party leader Jill Stein, all with gunsight crosshairs on their faces. Sayoc had spent the last year obsessively following Trump, attending his rallies, and then stalking his opponents and making plans for mass murder. When Sayoc was captured, Trump made his usual rote and not believable comments about violence, with empty bored body language.
He also far more fervently complained about the media, "ridiculously comparing this to September 11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing.” When a reporter asked if he would tone it down, he sneered, “Tone down, no. Could tone up.”
Two days later, he complained, "Republicans were doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this ‘Bomb’ stuff happens and the momentum greatly slow.” In other words, attempted mass murder of his critics means little.
As for Trump’s supporters, many of the leading ones lied and pretended Sayoc was somehow part of a false flag conspiracy theory to blame Republicans for their terrorist followers. Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Ann Coulter, Dinesh D'Souza, Michael Savage, Frank Gaffney, and Candace Owens all claimed this.
Forty-first: James Patrick threatened to kill Democrats, “weak Republicans,” and their families in October 2018 if they didn’t confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. He called himself as a “Trump Militant Conservative” who wanted to enslave “not just Blacks but ALL liberals.”
Forty-second: Michael Brogan threatened to kill a senator for criticizing Trump and favoring abortion rights in December 2018. “I’m going to put a bullet in ya.” Later he told a journalist, “I don’t think it’s that big.”
Forty-third: A California man plotted to blow up a “Satanic” statue in the capitol in Springfield, Illinois in December 2018 to bring attention to Q Anon.
Forty-fourth: Randal Thom attacked a group of Elizabeth Warren supporters at their rally in Storm Lake, Iowa in January 2019, striking them with a stick. He yelled, “Trump 2020!” while being arrested. Thom was one of “Trump’s Front Row Joes” that travelled to dozens of Trump’s rallies. Thom named his dog Trump, and later lied by claiming Democrats conspired to kill it, when actually the dog was shot while attacking livestock.
Forty-fifth: In January 2019, four white supremacists, Vincent Vetromile, Brian Colaneri, Andrew Crysel, and a minor, plotted to attack a Muslim community in Islamberg, the target of conspiracy theories by Fox, Alex Jones, and Trump supporters. They had 23 guns and three bombs.
The leader Vetromile was a fanatic Trump supporter and anti Muslim, anti immigrant bigot. He railed against “the liberal/Muslim horde.” “KILL THEM ALL and nobody will be left to attack us.” Immigrants are “rapefugees.” “A good reason to get rid of all Muslims.” “Kids have been shown to be terrorists too and have killed our people.” “The Koran tells them to kill us so they’re all GUILTY!”
Vetromile also ranted about “crooked Hillary,” repeated Trump’s claim Obama wasn’t born in the US, and insisted Democrats steal elections. He even thanked Trump. “Dear @POTUS , I invited you to my Eagle Scout ceremony…Wish you had come but I get you’re busy. Thanks for MAGA.”
Forty-fifth: In February 2019, white nationalist Chris Hasson plotted to murder Jewish Senators Chuck Schumer and Richard Blumenthal, Black Senator Kamala Harris, noted feminist Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand, Latina Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Black Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Congressman Beto O'Rourke, MSNBC hosts Chris Hayes and Joe Scarborough, and Black CNN hosts Don Lemon and Van Jones. He had 15 guns and plotted biological attacks on the public and food supplies.
“Much blood will have to be spilled to get whitey off the couch….They will die as will the traitors who actively work toward our demise,” Sasson wrote. And Trump explicitly refused to condemn him or white supremacy.
Instead, the most Trump would say is, “It’s a shame…a very sad thing.” When asked if his constant bigoted and violent rants played a part, Trump smiled and said, “I think my language is very nice.”
Republican Chairman Michael Steele reacted, “Why are we acting like this is a space that Donald Trump is going to go in and behave of the American ideal? No, he is not. These are his people. And he's not going to thank law enforcement because he's probably not happy about what law enforcement did.”
Forty-sixth: An unknown man attacked a BBC reporter in El Paso February 2019 after Trump shouted he was being mistreated by “fake news.” The man wore a MAGA cap. He wasn’t arrested or even identified.
Forty-seventh: Patrick Carlineo threatened to murder Congresswoman Ilhan Omar in March 2019. He told an aide, “She’s a fucking terrorist. I’ll put a bullet in her fucking skull.” Carlineo told cops, “I’m a patriot, I love the president, and I hates radical Muslims in our government.” Police found six guns and hundreds of rounds in his home.
Forty-eighth: Anthony Comello murdered Francesco Cali in Staten Island in March 2019, believing him to be part of the deep state. Comello thought he had the protection and support of Trump for the murder.
Forty-ninth: Matthew Haviland threatened to murder a professor in North Kingstown, Rhode Island more than two dozen times in March 2019 for speaking about abortion rights. He emailed the professor, “You will have your face ripped off and eaten by me, personally. I will enjoy raping your body after you’re dead.” “I will bite through your eyeballs while you're still alive, and I will laugh while you scream.”
He also sent a dozen threats to the professor’s school, "You should be Murdered in cold blood,” that he would bomb the school, and all Democrats “must be slaughtered.” He told cops he was angry at how media portray Trump.
Fiftieth: One of the most notorious terrorist mass murders inspired at least in part by Trump was outside the US, in New Zealand in March 2019. Brendon Tarrant murdered 49 Muslim worshippers in two mosques in Christchurch. Two more died of their wounds later, with 40 others injured. Alongside his fellow white supremacist terrorists Dylann Roof and Andre Brevik, Tarrant praised Trump, “As a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” Tarrant also said he hoped to spark a race war in the US, but chose progressive New Zealand as a target because of its remoteness.
In response, Trump never called the massacre in Christchurch terrorism. Instead he made a vague show of “sympathy” and “wishes” that “49 innocent people have so senselessly died.” When jihadists kill, he was never vague and always angry. When white supremacists massacre, it’s seemingly an act of God like a hurricane.
Fifty-first: John Kless threatened to murder Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and Somali-American Congresswoman Ilhan Omar in April 2019. Both are also the only Muslim women in Congress. Kless was angry at their criticism of Trump. Kress also sent threats filled with racist epithets to Black Congressman Cory Booker.
Fifty-second: Dallas Frazier repeatedly beat a 61 year old anti Trump protester near a Trump rally in Cincinnati in August 2019, giving him permanent eye damage. Frazier was half his victim’s age. He joked, “He'll have to go to the hospital every time he sneezes to get his eye put back in.”
Fifty-third: Neo Nazi Eric Lin repeatedly threatened a Latina woman and tried to hire a hit man to kidnap and beat her in Seattle in August 2019. One message to her was, “I Thank God everyday President Donald John Trump is President and that he will launch a Racial War and Crusade.” Lin also ranted that Trump will put non-whites into concentration camps and use the military against them.
Fifty-fourth: One of the most notorious acts of racist terrorism was the mass murder of Latinos in an El Paso Walmart in August 2019. White nationalist Patrick Crusius killed 23 and injured 23 more using an AK47, deliberately singling out Mexicans, in his own words. Inspired by the Christchurch mosque massacres, in turn partly inspired by Trump, Crusius also cited Trump extensively as someone he admired and imitated, repeating Trump’s racist rants word for word.
Crusius was the son of a therapist and from a well off suburb of Dallas, and deliberately drove ten hours to find a city with higher numbers of Latinos. He posted a four page screed online at 8Chan, a popular site for bigots of all stripes. He used Trump’s stock phrases, “Hispanic invasion,” “They are the instigators,” “I am simply defending my country,” “An invasion,” and “Send them back.” Crusius repeatedly praised Trump’s failed attempts to build a border wall. “BuildTheWall is the best way that @POTUS has worked to secure our country so far!”
Crusius even spelled out “TRUMP” using a set of gun photos. Unconvincingly, he tried to deny Trump was any inspiration in his murder spree, but undercut it using Trump’s notorious stock phrase, “fake news.”
The massacre took place mid morning. Trump didn’t respond to it until late afternoon, calling it “terrible shooting,” but not terrorism, nor mentioning its racist cause though it was already widely known. Fifteen minutes later, he was tweeting about sports, the UFC. He spent the rest of the weekend golfing.
On Monday, Trump finally, in his usual rote, distant, and insincere manner, condemned the mass murder. Finally, he admitted it was motivated by white supremacy, a little bit. Then he went on to blame it far more on mental illness and video games.
Then two days later, Trump equated Antifa “or any other kind of supremacy.” Once again, he equated anti racists, the overwhelming majority of them non violent, to white supremacist mass murderers.
Trump then went to El Paso despite a long list of elected officials, church groups, and civil rights leaders urging him to stay away, often blaming him for the terrorist attack. Protesters dogged his quick visit. The media were barred, and Trump used his speech as a photo op, with him cluelessly giving big smiles and thumbs up. The speech ignored the massacre, Trump instead bragging (falsely) he got a bigger crowd than local Congressman Beto O’Rourke. Trump insulted O’Rourke as “crazy” and released a campaign video of himself with rescue workers, set to fast paced dramatic music.
Fifty-fifth: Timothy Larson attacked the Chapel of the Holy Hill in Sedona, Arizona in September 2019, smashing with a crowbar, shouting the Catholic church supported human trafficking. Larson supported Q Anon online and claimed desecrating the church was a “mission.”
Fifty-sixth: Cynthia Abcug plotted to kidnap her son in December 2019 in Montana, believing her brother’s foster family were pedophiles, “evil Satan worshippers,” and part of a deep state cabal, ideas she got from Q Anon.
Fifty-seventh: In Richmond in January 2020, Brian Mark Lemley, and William Bilbrough, and Patrik Mathews, members of the Neo Nazi group the Base, were arrested for plotting to start a civil war and race war. They had assault weapons, body armor, and thousands of rounds.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency, banning guns near the capital. About 16,000 protesters, mostly armed, gathered to oppose new gun control laws. Gun rights groups and Virginia Republican leaders both urged calm.
Trump ignored the threat of Nazi terrorism and tweeted, "The Democrat Party in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia are working hard to take away your 2nd Amendment rights. This is just the beginning. Don’t let it happen.”
Fifty-eighth: Neely Blanchard kidnapped her two children from their grandmother, their legal guardian in Kentucky in March 2020. Blanchard is a Q Anon believe and in the so called sovereign citizen movement. This was her second kidnapping.
Fifty-ninth: Eduardo Moreno derailed a train in Los Angeles iin April 2020 in an attempt to damage the USN Mercy, a hospital ship. He believed the Mercy was part of a conspiracy involving the Coronavirus, ideas taken from Q Anon.
Sixtieth: Jessica Prim threatened to murder Hillary Clinton, Biden, and lobbyist Tony Podesta in New York in April 2020. “Clinton and her assistant, Joe Biden and Tony Podesta need to be taken out in the name of Babylon! I can’t be set free without them gone…I was watching the press conferences with Donald Trump on TV. I felt like he was talking to me,” she wrote online. She also livestreamed her attempted assassinations before being arrested with knives.
Sixty-first: In Oakland in May and Santa Cruz in June 2020, two members of the far right Boogaloo Boys, Steven Carrillo and Robert Justus, murdered two cops and injured three more. A drive by shooting of a federal courthouse killed one of the Federal Protective Service and wounded a second. At Carrillo’s home, he murdered a sheriff and wounded a deputy and a highway patrolman with an assault weapon and home made bombs.
The Boogaloo Boys are a loose alliance of white supremacists and anti government militias seeking, in their words, “acceleration,” or to start a civil war sooner. They especially try to use protests as a chance to murder leftists such as Antifa or civil rights protesters like Black Lives Matter. They also seek to murder police or government, and blame it on leftists.
Trump’s reaction was to do exactly that. He blamed “professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa and others.” It was one of dozens of his statements spreading deliberate falsehoods about Antifa and BLM while insisting white supremacists and right wing terrorists were not a problem.
Trump was not alone. Up to half of all Twitter accounts spreading lies about Antifa were computer bots, likely mostly or all Russian. But Trump is by far the person most pervasively and persistently hiding right wing terrorism by pretending it was by leftists.
Sixty-second: Alpalus Slyman kidnapped his five children and lead police on a 20-mile car chase while livestreaming, talking about Q Anon. “Donald Trump, I need a miracle or something…Q Anon, help me!” He claimed the police were going to kidnap or kill his children and his wife and oldest daughter were plotting against him.
Sixty-third: Corey Hurren threatened to murder Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, ramming a truck through the gates of his home in Ottawa in July 2020. Hurren was captured 13 minutes later. Hurren claimed Bill Gates was responsible for Covid and followed Q Anon online.
Sixty-third: Cecilia Fulbright chased two drivers, repeatedly ramming one vehicle in Waco in August 2020. Fulbright believed she was rescuing a child from a pedophile. She believed the Q Anon conspiracy theory, that Trump was, “taking down the cabal and pedophile ring.”
Sixty-fifth: In August 2020, white supremacist and Kenosha Guard militia vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse traveled from Illinois to Wisconsin and murdered two civil rights protesters, one of them a medic, and injured a third using an assault weapon, shooting one of them seven times in the back. Kenosha police told militia they were going to push the protesters towards them, thanked them, gave them water, and then didn’t arrest Rittenhouse after the murders.
Rittenhouse being a racist is not a serious question. He is on video flashing a white power symbol and part of a group at a bar singing the anthem of the “western supremacist” militia the Proud Boys. The Kenosha Guard describes itself as a militia, one explicitly formed against Black civil rights demonstrators. Rittenhouse was armed with an AK 47 given to him by his mother, who both drove him to meet the militia and enabled him to drink beer with the Proud Boys. (Being 18, he could only drink with a parent present.) At his hearing, the judge ordered he have no further contact with other white racist or armed groups, explicitly including Kenosha Guard and Proud Boys.
Rittenhouse is certainly a Trump supporter, but Trump and other racists are even bigger supporters of his actions. Trump sought to transform Rittenhouse from a murdering vigilante into a noble defender fearing demonstrators, smearing the victims as aggressive and violent. “He was trying to get away from them…It looks like he fell and then they very violently attacked him,. I guess he was in very big trouble. He probably would have been killed.”
There is no evidence for any of this. As already noted, one victim was shot seven times in the back. The closest thing to violence on the part of any of the three victims was one man heroically dying trying to defeat this heavily armed vigilante spraying his AK 47 by swinging a skateboard at him.
Trump, as usual, decided to pour fire on gasoline by showing up in person. He visited Kenosha, against the mayor’s wishes, “To see the people that did such a good job for me.” In other words, to show his approval for a vigilante murdering civil rights demonstrators.
When a reporter asked about the effect of his unwanted visit, Trump said “Well, it could also increase enthusiasm, and it could increase love and respect for our country. And that's why I'm going.”
Trump also showed his sympathies squarely by not meeting with family of the man killed by cops. Homeland Security also had a set of talking points to defend Rittenhouse’s vigilante murders:
“Rittenhouse took his rifle to the scene of the rioting to help defend small business owners.”
“Kyle was seen being chased and attacked by rioters.”
“There were multiple gunmen involved.”
All the claims were false. There was no rioting, just demonstrating. Rittenhouse was the aggressor. There were no other gunmen, just the medic carrying a handgun for self defense that was never used. Rittenhouse shot the medic unprovoked.
In the aftermath, Trump continued to smear the victims and defend white supremacist militias. He also continued to spread the lie that black-clad Antifa members were being flown to protests across the country to carry out violence.
Sixty-sixth: Emily Jolley kidnapped her son from his father who has sole legal custody. Jolley is a supporter of Trump and Q Anon, believing Child Protective Services steals children to drain them of a special substance drunk by members of a global cabal.
Sixty-seventh: In October 2020, 14 members of the Wolverine Watchmen far right vigilantes tried to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. They planned to put her on “trial” for treason and execute her. The timing was deliberate, to be right before the presidential election in November.
They also considered kidnapping Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and South Carolina Governor McMaster, also for having lockdowns for COVID. At one point they posted an image online, a list of those they wanted to hang, Obama, Hillary Clinton, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ilhan Omar, all Muslims, and all liberals. The members had assault weapons, tasers, home made bombs, and home made “ghost guns” without serial numbers.
In April, Trump began tweeting, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” as well as other states with safety measures to stop the spread of COVID. In June, the Wolverines (the name taken from the right wing film Red Dawn) began plotting the kidnapping. Members of the Wolverines supported the Boogaloo Boys, Proud Boys, Three Percenters militia, Michigan United for Liberty, Michigan Liberty Militia, and protested in favor of Trump’s Muslim Ban wearing fatigues and carrying firearms.
Trump made one of his usual rote statements that violence in general was wrong. But his main response, repeated and enthusiastic, was to keep on attacking Whitmer and claim her attempted murder was no big deal. “We'll have to see if it's a problem…Maybe it was a problem, maybe it wasn't.”
Each time Trump taunted or mocked Whitmer, his audience then chanted, “Lock her up!” Each time, Trump smiled broadly.
Whitmer publicly responded, “Every time the president ramps up this violent rhetoric, every time he fires up Twitter to launch another broadside against me, my family and I see a surge of vicious attacks sent our way. This is no coincidence, and the President knows it. He is sowing division and putting leaders, especially women leaders, at risk.”
