“We all have to hang up”
Trump fans call for violence after guilty verdict
31.05.2024, 08:34
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In the trial over hush money payments, Trump is found guilty on all counts. The sentence will be announced in July. Supporters of the former president do not want to accept the jury’s decision. They are calling for protests and acts of violence on social networks.
In the USA, supporters of former President Donald Trump have called for riots and retaliation following his guilty verdict. There have been many calls for violence and protests on social networks. This was revealed by a review of Reuters’ statements on the three websites close to Trump: Trump’s own platform Truth Social, Patriots.Win and Gateway Pundit. The Republican, who wants to be president again, was found guilty on all counts by a jury on Thursday evening in the trial over a hush money payment to a porn actress.
He is the first former president in US history to be convicted of a crime. The sentence is to be announced in July. “Someone in New York with nothing to lose needs to take care of Merchan,” wrote one commenter on Patriots.Win, referring to Judge Juan Merchan. “Hopefully he gets hit by illegals with a machete,” it said, alluding to immigrants who entered the country illegally. One post on Gateway Pundit said: “It’s time to shoot some leftists. This is not something that can be resolved through elections.”
Author warns of Trump’s dangerousness
Many Trump supporters saw the guilty verdict as proof that the political system was not working. “1,000,000 (armed) men must go to Washington and hang everyone. That’s the only solution,” wrote one on Patriots.win. Another added: “Trump should already know that he has an army ready to fight and die for him.” Several posts called for Democrats to be targeted and in some cases suggested shooting them. Trump himself fueled the aggression against the court after the guilty verdict. “This was a disgrace, this was a rigged process by a judge who was involved in a conflict and corrupt,” he told reporters. On Truth Social, he called the judge unfair.
Jacob Ware, co-author of God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America, warned of Trump’s ability to mobilize extremists. “Unless he accepts the trial, the extremist response to his legal problems will be militant,” he said.
Patriots.Win and Gateway Pundit did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Truth Social said, “It is hard to believe that Reuters, once a respected news outlet, would sink so low as to publish such a manipulative, false, defamatory and blatantly stupid article as this one out of pure political malice.” All three websites have policies against violent speech and some of the posts were later removed. A spokesperson for Trump also did not initially respond to an email seeking comment.