[This violence was fomented in the open, and not for the first
time. Right-wing activists have made a habit of organizing in the open
and galvanizing supporters to express their desire for violent
confrontation.] [[link removed]]

FAR-RIGHT ACTIVISTS TELEGRAPHED VIOLENCE WEEKS IN ADVANCE  
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Alex Newhouse
January 8, 2021
The Conversation
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_ This violence was fomented in the open, and not for the first time.
Right-wing activists have made a habit of organizing in the open and
galvanizing supporters to express their desire for violent
confrontation. _

,

 

The attack on the U.S. Capitol building
[[link removed]]
on Jan. 6 was shocking, but no one following right-wing activity on
social media should have been surprised. The attempt by President
Donald Trump’s far-right supporters to violently stop Congress from
certifying the Electoral College vote and formalizing Joe Biden’s
election victory was consistent with their openly expressed hopes and
plans.

As a researcher of far-right extremism
[[link removed]], I monitor
right-wing social media communities. For weeks in advance, I watched
as groups across the right-wing spectrum declared their intentions. On
Facebook, Twitter, Parler and other platforms, influencers,
politicians, activists and ordinary people focused on Jan. 6 as their
final opportunity to prevent what they claimed was corruption on a
monumental scale.

To most of these activists, there was no possible resolution other
than Trump emerging victorious. In the open, they discussed how they
were preparing to force Congress and Vice President Mike Pence to
nullify the election results and declare Trump the victor.

The buildup

Since the election in November, Trump and his allies had spread
baseless conspiracy theories alleging that Democrats
[[link removed]],
some Republicans
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and the “deep state”
[[link removed]] had committed
widespread voter fraud to elect Biden. In this myth, Trump had won the
election in a landslide, and only corrupt politicians stood in the way
of his victory. These conspiracy theories sparked fury in all corners
of the right-wing ecosystem, and the certification process for the
Electoral College votes became a symbol of both corruption
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and opportunity
[[link removed]].

Conservative groups began organizing for a large-scale protest in
Washington, D.C., following a tweet from President Trump
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posted on Dec. 18. “Big protest in D.C. on Jan. 6. Be there, will be
wild!” he wrote. His instructions were taken seriously by mainstream
supporters and far-right extremists alike.

Stymied repeatedly in their efforts to overturn the election
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Trump supporters and right-wing extremists searched for another avenue
to reverse election results. For Trump and his supporters, Jan. 6
became a desperate, last-ditch effort. As social media posts showed,
this desperation led them to express the righteousness of using
violence to force Congress to act in their favor.

Out in the open

In the days preceding the events of Jan. 6, right-wing social media
communities frequently discussed preparations, travel plans and hopes
for the demonstrations. Across Twitter and Facebook, people began
speaking of Jan. 6 in near-mystical terms. By surveying social media
data from mid-December to Jan. 5, I discovered thousands of posts
referring to the planned protests as if they were a coming revolution.

In some circles, the event became synonymous with a final battle –
the moment when all of the supposed crimes of Democrats would be laid
bare, and when ordinary Americans would take back the government.
“On January 6, we find out whether we still have a constitutional
republic,” one user wrote on Twitter on New Year’s Eve. “If not,
the revolution begins. I’d rather fight and die than live in a
socialist society. Pretty sure 80 million Americans feel the same
way.”

Specific references to storming the Capitol also appeared, although
infrequently. As one Twitter user put it, “Roberts is the
Corrupt-in-chief. January 6. We need to storm Congress and @SCOTUS and
arrest Roberts, McConnell, Pelosi, Schumer, McCarthy just to begin the
swamp’s draining! #RobertsCorruptInChief.”

More frequently, QAnon adherents
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zeroed in on Jan. 6 as the beginning of a chain of events that would
lead to apocalyptic cleansing they refer to as “The Storm.” Some
even believed that The Storm would arrive during the demonstration
itself, and that Trump would, far beyond any reasonable expectation,
arrest members of the Democratic and global elite for treason while
also winning the election.

[A man wearing a shirt with a large Q on it stands in front of a group
in a smoke-filled corridor]
[[link removed]]

QAnon conspiracy theory adherents were among those who stormed the
U.S. Capitol building Jan. 6. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
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Although posts on Facebook and Twitter hinted that more than just
protests were possible, nowhere was the coming violence as obvious as
on Parler. The site, which has attracted millions of new conservative
users in the past year
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has positioned itself as a bastion for right-wing conspiracy theories
and organizing efforts
[[link removed]].
From my research, hundreds of Parler users expressed their sincere
belief, and even desire, that the demonstrations would spark a
physical battle, revolution or civil war.

“We are ready to fight back and we want blood,” a Parler post from
Dec. 28 declared. “The president need to do some thing if Jan. 6 is
the day then we are ready.” Another user stated, “January 6 will
either be our saving grace or we will have another civil war that
should end very quickly!! Either way Trump will be our POTUS!!
Anything less is unacceptable!!”

Using tools that allow me to monitor large-scale social media data, I
found evidence that right-wing activists had been explicit and open
with their intentions for the Jan. 6 demonstrations since at least
mid-December. I have no doubt that the demonstration was specifically
designed to force Congress to overturn the election. Although the act
of storming the Capitol may not have been planned, the demonstrators
had prepared for weeks to use at least the threat of physical violence
to intimidate Congress and Pence during the certification process.

[_Get our best science, health and technology stories._ Sign up for
The Conversation’s science newsletter
[[link removed]].]

A pattern of planning and calls for violence

The profound transparency with which right-wing activists planned
their demonstrations indicates both that extreme, anti-democratic
thought has become normalized on Parler, and that Twitter and Facebook
still struggle to moderate open calls to violence. This is not the
first time. Right-wing activists have made a habit of organizing in
the open and galvanizing supporters to express their desire for
violent confrontation.

Far-right activists have also engaged in online fundraising
[[link removed]],
including while livestreaming the attack
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on the Capitol building.

Since the attack, I’ve observed users on Parler, Facebook and
Twitter simultaneously celebrating the occupiers and spreading
unfounded, dangerous conspiracy theories that the instigators of the
violence were actually antifascists and leftists. On Parler, many
users have turned on Pence, and calls for the execution of politicians
have increased.

Law enforcement and intelligence services should learn from what
happened and the apparent lack of preparedness on the part of Capitol
police
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because this is likely to happen again. It’s impossible to know what
will happen next. However, the communities that caused the events of
Jan. 6 organized for it openly on social media – and they show every
intention of acting again.[The Conversation]

Alex Newhouse
[[link removed]], Research
Lead, Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism,
_Middlebury Institute of International Studies
[[link removed]]_

This article is republished from The Conversation
[[link removed]] under a Creative Commons license. Read
the original article
[[link removed]].

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