Why fears of post-election violence may be inflated
Democrats are sounding the alarm that former President Trump’s harsh rhetoric in the home stretch of a tight presidential race could portend a repeat of the mass political violence that broke out among his supporters in January 2021.
But national security experts say there’s reason to believe a repeat of the Jan. 6 insurrection is unlikely.
For the first time ever, the Secretary of Homeland Security has designated the upcoming Jan. 6, 2025 counting and certification of electoral votes in Washington, D.C. as a National Special Security Event (NSSE), which will ensure massive federal, state and local resources are deployed around the Capitol.
There’s also a different commander-in-chief. Unlike Trump, who hindered efforts to call in the National Guard to quell violence carried out by rioters at the Capitol, experts say President Biden would be unlikely to standby in the face of political violence.
And the prosecution of hundreds of rioters – including stiff sentences for the leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers – has weakened the militia-style groups that helped orchestrate the Jan. 6 riots.
Amy Cooter, an antigovernment extremist expert at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism of the Middlebury Institute, said the threat of election violence remains a concern.
But she said the conditions for political violence appears lower than in late 2020, a particularly tense year because of the George Floyd protests and coronavirus pandemic.
“I don't think we're seeing right now the level of organization that we saw pre-January 6,” she said.
But Cooter explained the situation could change fast after the election and depending on the post-election rhetoric.
“These landscapes are so volatile that [the assessment] today could dramatically change based on something that happens later,” she added. “But as of right now, I am most concerned with sort of small outbreaks of violence, not like we saw at January 6.”
There are concerns of violence from both sides.
Trump has now survived two assassination attempts, the first in July and the second in September. The first gunman, Matthew Crooks, was killed after firing a rifle into a Pennsylvania Trump rally, grazing the GOP presidential candidate’s ear. The FBI has not identified a clear motive.
The second gunman, Ryan Routh, was spotted with a gun at Trump’s Florida golf course before Secret Service agents fired at him. Routh has been identified by the FBI as having expressed a strong desire to kill Trump, who he sees as unfit for office.
Cooter said instances of violence from the left appear to be more isolated than organized, compared to right-wing actors.
“There's a smaller possibility ... that we could see similar sorts of outbursts from more left-wing actors. We've never seen violence in a parallel way on the left side of things in recent history around our political system,” she said. “But there are some indications that some of those groups are getting more concerned in a way that is conducive to possible violence as well.”
While the Secret Service has come under heavy scrutiny for the Trump assassination attempts, it says it’s well-prepared for the presidential transition.
The NSSE designation for the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration — as well as for the Jan. 6 election certification, given for the first time ever in September at the request of Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser — allows for resources from the federal government and state and local partners to be used for security around the events.
The Secret Service is the lead agency in implementing and designing the operational security plans around NSSEs, which also includes the annual State of the Union address.
“I think I'm safe to say that because of the last election and that what had happened during the certification that prompted D.C. to make that request,” a Secret Service official told The Hill of the decision. “Whether there's any threats, I'm not going to be able to speculate on that, per se, but this is the first time this was done.”
The Secret Service is working closely with U.S. Capitol Police, U.S. Park Police, and Metropolitan Police to design and implement the security plan for around the Capitol area on Jan. 6.
The official said it would look similar to the security measures taken during the State of the Union, which last year included a non-scalable fence around the Capitol grounds. U.S. Capitol Police also temporarily close roads around the Capitol Building.
A multi-agency coordination center also is being set up that will be 24/7 operational during the Jan. 6 certification and has representatives from all involved agencies to coordinate and communicate during the event and share information.
If there are large-scale demonstrations, riots or clashes, it’s likely that Biden and state governors would call in the National Guard without delay, increasing the chances of halting violence quickly, experts said.
“If some sort of violence were to happen, I think you would expect a swifter response from that level of governance,” said Kieran Doyle, North America research manager at Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED).
National Guardsmen were assigned on the day of the Jan. 6 attacks, but the DC mayor’s request for more troops was not met for more than an hour after the riots started and rioters began to overwhelm U.S. Capitol Police. The additional Guardsmen also deployed around 5 p.m., when the rioting had largely ended.
Vice President Pence had to approve the deployment because a response was missing from the commander-in-chief, Trump, who went dark for more than two hours on Jan. 6 before he told rioters to go home.
Vanda Felbab-Brown, the director of the initiative on nonstate armed actors at the Brookings Institution, said the environment under Biden was “very different than the enabling environment” under Trump.
“I actually have considerable confidence that with strong federal action, violence will not become as intense,” she said. “It doesn't mean that violence will not break out, but it provides a possibility of just much better, earlier, more resolute law enforcement action to mitigate its spread and the threat that it poses.”
Felbab-Brown, however, said that extremist groups might also be more prepared, and she pointed to concerns about potential extremism within the ranks of the National Guard or local police departments.
The National Guard did not answer a question on the threat of extremists in the ranks. It said in a statement to The Hill that it stands “ready to provide support” after the election and through the inauguration of the next president.
“The National Guard has supported every presidential inauguration since the first one honoring President George Washington,” the statement said. “The Guard is a reliable partner for the U.S. Secret Service and other civilian law enforcement agencies handling security for these historic events.”
The Biden administration has taken steps to root out extremism in the military ranks, including a 2021 directive that updated pre-enlistment screening questionnaires and clarified for the first time that anti-government and anti-democratic actions violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which applies to all servicemembers.
But a November 2023 Pentagon inspector general report still found 183 instances of extremist activity in the military.
The greater risk of defection, however, might come from local police departments, particularly if violence flares up in states and towns across the country, said Felbab-Brown.
“You don't have unified national police [or] the same policies that the Department of Defense was able to implement,” she said. “The areas of the biggest uncertainty and potentially biggest risk is local police departments.”
Trump has stoked fears of post-election violence with his rhetoric about Democrats trying to steal the election, and refusal to commit to accepting the results.
The GOP nominee magnified those concerns earlier this month when he said that “the bigger problem are the people from within,” calling for the military to be used against “radical left lunatics.”
Biden appeared for a rare White House briefing earlier this month and said he was “concerned” about what Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), would do if they lost.
“I'm confident it’ll be free and fair. I don't know whether it will be peaceful,” he said. “The things that Trump has said and the things that he said last time out when he didn't like the outcome of the election were very dangerous.”
Another major factor in the Jan. 6 riots were extremist and militia groups that helped plan a coordinated assault on the Capitol. Experts say they have declined in strength significantly after dozens of members were locked up following the Jan. 6 riots, including Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes.
Since then, recruitment has dropped nationwide among militia groups, according to ACLED, which said 2024 is on track to see the lowest single-year level of extremist group mobilization since data tracking began in 2020.
The DOJ crackdown has significantly weakened the organizational structure of those groups and has sent warnings to other members.
“Part of this is likely some sort of biding time and strategy for some of these groups, not knowing exactly what will happen this year, and therefore not knowing what position will lead them to be successful in the longer term,” said Doyle at ACLED.
But experts say militia groups and right-wing extremist organizations are connected in a vast online ecosystem, and they may be operating under the radar.
“It could just be that also, because of that reason, many of these groups are choosing to organize outside the public eye, and we're simply not aware of this,” said Doyle.
Other groups have increased mobilization and activity, including white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups like Patriot Front, Active Clubs, White Lives Matter and the Blood Tribe, according to ACLED.
And the online research forum Just Security warned in a report this month that the Proud Boys still pose a threat, even as they have become more decentralized and are working in self-governing local chapters.
The report warned that Proud Boys members continue to rally across the country and that “law enforcement agencies should not underestimate the group’s capabilities.”
Nick Quested, a filmmaker who recently released "64 Days: The Road to Insurrection,” which follows the Proud Boys in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 riots, warned the group has “evolved” since 2021.
“Cell-based networks are designed to stop infiltration and protect the actual leadership, so you only know one person each time,” he said. “That's obviously showing some degree of evolution. Will they be able to organize the same type of numbers? I don't know. I don't think so.”