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Following yesterday’s attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, leaving one attendee dead at a Pennsylvania campaign rally, extremists have taken to social media platforms to spread misogyny, push conspiracy theories, fantasize about an imminent “civil war,” and even make threats against political opponents as retribution for the shooting. In the past day, since the shooting, this rhetoric is exploding on platforms like Telegram, Rumble, 4chan, Truth Social, Twitter, and Gab, which have historically been bastions of violent, hateful, and conspiratorial content.
On Telegram, a social media network known for platforming far-right extremists like the Proud Boys, conspiracy theories about the shooting spread like wildfire, with posts related to “psyop” (short for “psychological operation”), “false flag,” and the shooting having been staged rising 85 percent from July 12 to July 13. Mentions and references to “civil war” grew a staggering 1,244 percent.
References to “civil war” on Telegram skyrocketed by over 1,000 percent following the shooting
“Diversity” and Biden were targeted for why the shooter evaded security measures. The Proud Boys of Columbus expressed disdain for the “utter incompetence of the diversity hires on the Secret Service executive protection team,” also claiming that President Joe Biden made “sure that Trump got the B-Team,” insinuating that the inclusion of women, who the Proud Boys as a matter of course belittle, in the United States Secret Service led to the attack happening. Meanwhile, Proud Boys Ohio, referencing pictures of women protecting Trump as he was escorted off stage, said “Women should not work Secret Service protection detail.” They also shared a screenshot of a tweet by far-right influencer Ann Coulter saying “Why are there girl secret service agents?”
Proud Boys Ohio shares a tweet by Ann Coulter targeting women in the Secret Service, adding that women only work in it because “it makes adults in offices feel good about themselves” (Source: Telegram)
Extremists bombarded social media with conspiracy theories blaming the so-called “deep state” for the attempted assassination. Proud Boys Ohio shared a screenshot of a tweet calling the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the United States Secret Service, an example of the “weaponization of the deep state,” as they “allowed” the shooter to get on a roof closeby to the Trump rally. Similarly, the Cape Fear Proud Boys said “something doesn’t smell right.” In a follow-up post, they blamed political opponents for the shooting, saying “you knew this was coming. If they don’t like your politics and can’t destroy your life or get you sent to jail, they’ll try to kill you.” Also targeting political opponents, the Villain City Proud Boys, based in Miami, shared an image of Hillary Clinton captioned “What do you mean we missed?” Clinton has been the subject of other conspiracy theories, such as #PizzaGate, which purported that she, with other Democrats, ran a child sex trafficking ring out of a Washington, D.C., pizzeria. Rapid spread of the conspiracy theory online in 2016 led to a man entering the pizzeria and firing a rifle, resulting in a guilty plea and a sentence of four years in prison for the assailant.
Some accounts blamed the Secret Service directly for the shooting, or insinuated that law enforcement played a role. The Tennessee Proud Boys speculated that the Secret Service didn’t “cover ALL vantage points,” which could’ve been an “intentional overlook (sic).” Nick Fuentes, leader of the Groyper movement and the white nationalist America First Political Action Conference, said “it is hard to believe that this wasn’t a planned operation carried out by law enforcement.”
Martin Sellner, the de-facto leader of the white nationalist Identitarian movement in Europe, commented on how the “left-wing mob… are all responsible” for the shooting.
There were some calls for violence on Telegram, such as on the channel “Nazbol,” short for “National Bolshevism,” saying “PLEASE LET THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 2 START.” A member of the “Tommy Robinson Official Chat,” a fan group dedicated to virulent British anti-Muslim activist Tommy Robinson, said civil war is “unavoidable” and “inevitable.”
A commenter on the Tommy Robinson Official Telegram Chat claims a “civil war” between “right” and “left” is “inevitable” (Source: Telegram)
On 4chan, an unmoderated forum rife with hate and extremism, posts claiming the shooting was staged or a “psyop” ran rampant. Posts mentioning phrases relating to “psyop” rose 179 percent from July 12 to July 13 and posts with the term “civil war” rose 213 percent. Some users made assumptions about the shooter’s motivations. For example, one commenter claimed the shooter was a Republican trying to “kick off a civil war” by “kill[ing] his own guy.” Another called the shooting “a psyop like January 6.”
A few antisemitic posts claimed the shooting was part of a larger Jewish conspiracy, calling it a “k*ke psyop” and “another jewish psyop to slurp up.”
4chan users combined fantasies of revenge with the prospect of an upcoming “civil war.” Some promised to “return fire in the civil war” against “leftists,” while others were impatiently calling for others to “get to it already.”
Rumble, a far-right video platform, hosts considerable conspiratorial and violent commentary related to the shooting. Conspiratorial content rose 48 percent from July 12 to July 13, while comments about a civil war rose 163 percent, and talk about “revenge” rose 120 percent over the same time frame. Conspiratorial comments included blaming Biden for the shooting, claiming Democrats “want to get the right riled up for their civil war, chaos, martial law and strip us of our last few freedoms and dollars”
References on Rumble to a supposedly upcoming “civil war” more than doubled between July 12 and 13
Violent comments on Rumble about retaliating against political opponents and starting a civil war were particularly concerning. One user said “from now on it’s not just Democrats I’m going to kill it’s going to be everybody because if you didn’t do anything to protect [Trump] or anything to stop this from happening or get revenge then you are the enemy and I’m going to kill you.” Others shared this sentiment, saying “it’s war baby… The civil war has started,” “show no mercy on pedo Libtards,” and “maybe revenge against these low life bastards isn’t such a bad idea after this designed assassination attempt.”
Other users blamed the mainstream media, often referred to as “MSM,” for the shooting, saying “time for revenge on MSM” and “total blame lies on the news outlets that run their mouths against Trump all the goddamn time. They better watch their mouths from now on.”
On Truth Social, Trump’s own platform, users inevitably exploded with anger. Kash Patel, a former Department of Defense official during the Trump administration, claimed that the media and “corrupt actors in government” would “churn out more lies to cover their failure.” CatTurd, the name of the large conspiratorial account on Twitter, also resorted to conspiratorial narratives, stating that you could “guarantee a coverup and nothing but lies from the FBI,” and also responded to CNN and Washington Post headlines from the initial moments of the shooting, saying that “you can’t despise the Leftwing fake news propaganda media more.” Other Truth Social users with fewer followers iterated their beliefs that a “civil war” was coming with one user stating: “It is god damn time to put an end to these lunatics on the left. They want a civil war? They are damn sure asking for one.”
On the Fediverse, short for “federated universe,” which is a “collection of community owned, ad-free, decentralized, and privacy-centric social networks,” including the hate-infested Poast forums, conspiratorial rhetoric about the shooting rose 573 percent from July 12 to July 13, while comments referencing a “civil war” rose 140 percent, and discussions about “revenge” rose 131 percent over the same timeframe. Several commenters called the shooting “staged” and a “false flag,” including those who thought it was orchestrated by Trump himself. One user even suggested that “[Trump’s] security team were (sic) actively trying to get him killed.” Regarding ensuing violence, some speculated that “civil war 2.0 will start tomorrow” while many shared an article called “one inch from a potential civil war.”
On Elon Musk’s Twitter, “Civil War” immediately started trending after news of the shooting became more apparent. Several hundred listeners on the platform joined an antisemitic Twitter Live call titled “Jews try to Assassinate Trump.” Mike Collins, a Georgia Republican congressman claimed that “Joe Biden sent the orders” to kill Trump.
There were other conspiratorial narratives surging as well. Musk tweeted out a comment that left open the possibility that the failed response by the Secret Service could have been “deliberate,” and many other users claimed that the failure could have been a part of a “false flag” operation. The large far-right account “Clown World” tweeted an image of Secret Service officers on the roof of a building holding sniper rifles, saying that “something ain’t adding up.” Notorious conspiracist Alex Jones claimed that the shooting was a part of a “deep state” conspiracy, and that the U.S. was on the “verge of World War III.”
Others attempted to tie the shooting to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The popular far-right account “End Wokeness” tweeted a post that implied that women working in the Secret Service were responsible for allowing the attack to happen. Portuguese Groyper João Antunes, the leader of far right party Chega’s youth movement in Coimbra, took the opportunity to argue that women should not be allowed in “any law enforcement agencies” including the “secret service.”
On Gab, a “free speech” platform with a similar interface to Twitter, conspiratorial rhetoric rose 35 percent from July 12 to July 13, though discussions about civil war and revenge didn’t rise over the same timeframe. Several comments called the shooting a “false flag,” including those suggesting that it could’ve been orchestrated by “the Left, the Right, or the Globalist[s].” Globalist is a term used to describe “elites” that often has antisemitic connotations. Crossovers between conspiracies and antisemitism continued with some users saying “the trumpstein cult has been warning about a false flag event for years. This is a false flag event. And they can’t even see it.” Regarding violence, Gab users called for, and even “look[ed] forward to,” a “revenge campaign” against the government, saying “revenge will be swift” and “I’m hoping the revenge campaign actually happens.”
