‘Eye for an eye’: Violent rhetoric by Trump allies disturbs experts – Times of India

The federal indictment of former President Donald Trump has unleashed a wave of calls by his supporters for violence and an uprising to defend him, disturbing observers and raising concerns of a dangerous atmosphere before his court appearance in Miami on Tuesday.
In social media posts and public remarks, close allies of Trump have portrayed the indictment as an act of war. The allies have painted Trump as a victim of a weaponised justice department controlled by President Joe Biden.
The calls to action and threats have been amplified on right-wing media sites and have been met by supportive responses from social media users and cheers from crowds. Experts on political violence warn that attacks against people or institutions become more likely when elected officials or prominent media figures are able to issue threats or calls for violence with impunity. The pro-Trump mob that attacked the Capitol in 2021, was drawn to Washington in part by a post on Twitter from Trump weeks earlier, promising that it would be “wild.”
“Eye for an eye,” wrote Representative Andy Biggs, Arizona, on Twitter on Friday. His warning came shortly before the special counsel in the case, Jack Smith, spoke to the public for the first time since he took over Trump’s classified documents investigation.
On Instagram, Trump’s eldest son’s fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, posted a photo of the former president with the words, “Retribution Is Coming”. In Georgia, Kari Lake, who refused to concede the Arizona election for governor in 2022, emphasised that many of Trump’s supporters owned guns. He added: “That’s not a threat, that’s a public service announcement.”
Experts say even if aggressive language by high-profile individuals does not directly end in physical harm, it creates a dangerous atmosphere in which the idea of violence becomes more accepted.
On Pete Santilli’s talk show, the conservative provocateur declared that if he were the commandant of the Marine Corps, he would order “every single Marine” to grab Biden, “throw him in freakin’ zip ties in the back of a freakin’ pickup truck,” and “get him out of the White House.”
The FBI has been the target of much criticism. FBI field offices are reporting all threats related to their personnel or facilities to the Washington headquarters.
On Instagram on Saturday, Trump posted a mashup video of himself swinging a golf club on the course and an animation of a golf ball hitting Biden in the head, superimposed with footage of Biden falling at a public event in recent days after he tripped over something onstage.