{"id":1364,"date":"2023-08-12T16:54:47","date_gmt":"2023-08-12T20:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=1364"},"modified":"2023-08-12T16:54:58","modified_gmt":"2023-08-12T20:54:58","slug":"u-s-grapples-with-rising-threats-of-political-violence-as-2024-election-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=1364","title":{"rendered":"U.S. grapples with rising threats of political violence as 2024 election looms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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PROVO, UTAH – AUGUST 9: With a broken window in the background, FBI agents process the home of Craig Robertson who was shot and killed by the FBI in a raid on his home this morning on August 9, 2023 in Provo, Utah. The FBI was investigating alleged threats by Robertson to President Biden who is visiting Salt Lake City today and tomorrow. (Photo by George Frey\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Politics<\/a> Aug 12, 2023 12:08 PM EDT<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DENVER (AP) \u2014 This week\u2019s confrontation that ended with FBI agents fatally shooting<\/a> a 74-year-old Utah man who threatened to assassinate President Joe Biden was just the latest example of how violent rhetoric has created a more perilous political environment across the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six days earlier, a 52-year-old Texas man was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for threatening to kill Arizona election workers. Four days before that, prosecutors charged a 56-year-old Michigan woman for lying to buy guns for her mentally ill adult son, who threatened to use them against Biden and that state\u2019s Democratic governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Threats against public officials have been steadily climbing in recent years, creating new challenges for law enforcement, civil rights and the health of American democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Capitol Police last year reported that they investigated more than double the number of threats against members of Congress as they did four years earlier. Driven by former President Donald Trump\u2019s lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him, threats against election workers<\/a> have exploded, with one in six reporting threats against them and many seasoned election administrators leaving the job<\/a> or considering it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely increased in the last five years,\u201d said Jake Spano, mayor in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park and a board member of the National League of Cities, which issued a report in 2021 finding that 81 percent of local elected officials reported receiving threats and 87 percent saw the problem worsening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WATCH:<\/strong> Election officials struggle to recruit poll workers for midterms amid growing threats<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials in Spano\u2019s town got deluged in 2018, when Trump tweeted critically about its city council\u2019s decision to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of its meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe lasting impact of Donald Trump\u2019s presidency is that he made it clear that the norms of how we treat each other no longer apply,\u201d said Spano, a Democrat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The threats are not simply an issue of coarsening of the national discourse. Experts warn they can be precursors of political violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, a man who belonged to a Facebook group called \u201cTerminate the Republican Party\u201d opened fire<\/a> on GOP House members as they practiced for a charity baseball game, severely wounding now-House Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Last year, the 82-year-old husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, was assaulted by a hammer-wielding man<\/a> who had posted right-wing conspiracy theories online before breaking into the couple\u2019s San Francisco home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also last year, a man was arrested with knives, a pistol and zip ties outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh amid protests against the high court overturning women\u2019s right to obtain abortions. Then an armed Ohio man<\/a> in body armor who had been at the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was shot and killed after trying to enter an FBI office following that agency\u2019s search last summer of Trump\u2019s Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Man killed trying to break in Ohio FBI office appeared to threaten agents in social media post<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has repeatedly slammed the FBI and has called for a takeover of the Justice Department should he win the presidency again, as he faces additional charges related to his attempts to overturn the results<\/a> of the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has referred to the special counsel overseeing the federal prosecutions, Jack Smith, as \u201cderanged\u201d and an \u201cout of touch lunatic,\u201d and to the charges against him as \u201celection interference and yet another attempt to rig and steal a presidential election.\u201d He also has attacked a local Georgia prosecutor expected to file more charges against him next week, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts warn the escalating rhetoric could increase the risks of violence, especially as the 2024 election and Trump\u2019s trials draw closer. Lone attackers acting impulsively, rather than mass violence such as the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol<\/a>, are the greatest worry, said Javed Ali, a former senior FBI counterrorism official now at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat threat can materialize very quickly with no notice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an affidavit from FBI agents, Craig Deleeuw Robertson sounded like he could be that type of threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authorities said the self-employed woodworker referred to himself as a \u201cMAGA Trumper\u201d \u2014 referring to Trump\u2019s \u201dMake America Great Again\u201d slogan \u2014 and had posted threats against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and New York Attorney General Letitia James, all of whom have been targets of Trump\u2019s own attacks on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s Truth Social network was the first to warn the FBI about him after Robertson in March posted a threat to kill Bragg, the first prosecutor to file criminal charges against Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WATCH:<\/strong> Manhattan DA Bragg says Trump\u2019s actions are felony crimes \u2018no matter who you are\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even after a visit from FBI agents, the affidavit said, Robertson continued posting violent words and imagery online, including quipping that if the FBI was still monitoring his posts he would \u201cbe sure to have a loaded gun in case you drop by again.\u201d He also posted about killing Biden, who was due to visit the state Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who knew Robertson said he was not a danger to anyone, only an elderly, largely homebound conservative man spouting off online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe believed in his right to bear arms. He believed in his right to say what he feels. When it came down to it, he knew the Lord wouldn\u2019t have approved of killing innocent people,\u201d said Paul Searing, a local businessman who followed Robertson online for years and warned him when he crossed the line on social media. \u201cThings got out of hand because he just was really frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael German, a former FBI agent who is now a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice, said social media can transform private venting into menacing-sounding threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThings that may have been screamed at the television before now appear widely in public,\u201d German said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the problem is that federal law enforcement has been slow to go after organized right-wing violence, such as violent acts committed by the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and similar groups before the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> FBI, Homeland Security ignored \u2018massive amount\u2019 of intelligence before Jan. 6, Senate report says<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While threats against public officials are a routine part of the country\u2019s history, German said the rhetoric by Trump and some of his supporters presents a new danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat concerns me is that authority figures \u2014 not just Trump, but many others in the Republican Party \u2014 have promoted violent groups and dismissed the violence they\u2019ve committed,\u201d he said, adding that it sends a signal to some people who are sympathetic to the groups\u2019 views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kurt Braddock, a communications professor at American University in Washington, D.C., said rhetoric doesn\u2019t have to explicitly direct supporters to commit violence. Even if it inspires just a tiny fraction to commit crimes, it can still be dangerous given the extraordinary reach of political and extremist messaging<\/a> across the internet and the millions of people who absorb it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou get to the point where at least one person can interpret that as a call to violence,\u201d Braddock said. \u201cAs we\u2019ve seen, one person can do a lot of damage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the danger is greater and the rhetoric harsher on the political right, Braddock said, the left also has responsibility. Shortly before the arrest outside Kavanaugh\u2019s house, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had warned that the GOP-appointed Supreme Court majority had \u201creleased the whirlwind\u201d and \u201cwill pay the price\u201d with its ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, experts warned against presuming that too many Americans are so radicalized that they might engage in politically motivated violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe Mernyk, a doctoral student in Stanford University\u2019s Polarization and Social Change Lab, surveyed Democrats and Republicans about their support for political violence and found it to be very low. But perceptions of those in the other party provided a different picture: People in each party believed members of the other had high support for violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When participants were told that, in fact, support for violence was low on the other side, their own support for violence dropped even lower, Mernyk said,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mernyk stressed the importance of \u201cmaking sure people know these people, like the guy in Utah, are not representative of the Republican Party or the party\u2019s attitudes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sam Metz in Provo, Utah and Colleen Slevin in Denver contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Left: With a broken window in the background, FBI agents process the home of Craig Robertson, who was shot and killed by the FBI in a raid on his home on Aug. 9, 2023 in Provo, Utah. Photo by George Frey\/Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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