The posts are ominous.

“Pick a side, or YOU are next,” wrote conservative talkshow host Dan Bongino on the Truth Social media platform in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s 34 felony convictions.

The replies were even more so.

“Dan, seriously now,” one user wrote in response to Bongino. “I see no way out of all this mess without bloodshed. When you can rig an election, then weaponize the government and the courts against a former President, what other alternative is there? I’m almost 70 and would rather die than live in tyranny.”

That’s a common version of how many people on the US right reacted to the ex-president’s verdict, drawing on a “mirror world” where Trump is seen as the selfless martyr to powerful state forces and Joe Biden is the dangerous autocrat wielding the justice system as his own personal plaything and a threat to US democracy.

Calls for revenge, retribution and violence littered the rightwing internet as soon as Trump’s guilty verdict came down, all predicated on the idea that the trial had been a sham designed to interfere with the 2024 election. Some posted online explicitly saying it was time for hangings, executions and civil wars.

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Class civil war being instigated by wealthy oligarchs who don’t really care how it happens, but they’re intent on bringing about a coup one way or another. So they amp up the chaos and division and will look to take advantage of it. Right-wingers are being fed a bunch of bullshit and they’re trying to deify Trump, one of the worst examples of a human being in history, and getting pushed to violence to protect a living piece of excrement.

    The Justice Dept really needed to come down harder on Trump and everyone else involved in Jan. 6. They showed their cards then and what they’ve been planning all along, we shouldn’t gave given them a second chance.