Prospects for Political Violence Surrounding the US Midterm Elections

The attack on Paul Pelosi last week (an apparent kidnapping and assassination attempt against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) highlights the concern among terrorism analysts that the United States could suffer a spasm of political violence surrounding the 2022 mid-term elections, slated for Nov. 8. The online far-right ecosystem shows increasing calls for “civil war” and taking up arms to protect what is already being billed as a “rigged” and “corrupt” election, even before the votes have been cast.

Political violence in the United States is so threatening because it occurs in so many different ways—assassinations of political leaders, intimidation and violence, threats of civil war, and foreign interference that seeks to stoke the flames of partisanship and polarization to incite chaos. From lone wolves to networks and organizations, there are myriad scenarios that concern law enforcement and local authorities tasked with protecting the polls and maintaining security and safety around the elections.

Political Assassination

Political assassination has been a constant feature of American history, dating back to when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. Another U.S. President, William McKinley, was assassinated by an anarchist terrorist in 1901. During the tumultuous 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were killed in cold blood.

In the modern era, politicians across the political spectrum have been shot, from Rep. Gabby Giffords to Rep. Steve Scalise. A group of militia members from Michigan plotted to kidnap and assassinate Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. In June, a retired circuit court judge in Wisconsin was murdered in what has been described as a politically motivated act, while this summer also saw an armed individual arrested outside of the house of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. A man was arrested outside of the house of Rep. Pramila Jayapal after threatening to kill her. 

In 2022, Americans have a range of tools to carry out political assassinations with relative ease. Google maps and open source intelligence applications can help identify politicians’ home addresses, while the easy availability of firearms, even to individuals with a checkered history of mental health and criminal activity, is another significant factor. In short, the barriers to entry have been lowered substantially.

Harassment at the Polls

Among some elements of the US population, there is a deliberate attempt to harass and intimidate poll workers and others helping with the election. There were reports last week of individuals dressed in tactical gear and armed with weapons, surveilling ballot drop boxes at various locations in Arizona. In other cases, election workers have been provided with active shooter training, while polling places throughout the country have begun to harden what were previously considered soft targets, in some cases reinforcing interior walls with Kevlar, and in others, installing bulletproof and bomb-resistant glass as a precaution.

One of the goals of those threatening violence is to intimidate voters into staying home. When citizens are too afraid to leave their homes to visit a polling site, it has a chilling effect on democracy and directly contributes to the erosion of the very principles the Constitution was founded upon. Ironically, many of those engaging in harassment and intimidation of civilians describe themselves as “patriots,” a form of gaslighting that is simply a thinly veiled form of fascism. In June 2022, the Department of Homeland Security issued a National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin that warned of a “heightened threat environment” steadily escalating in the approach to midterm elections. This includes an insider threat posed by rogue election administrators, which makes the current threat landscape “more complex than it has ever been,” according to Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

State races have also gained national prominence and there are fears that election results in, for example, Georgia, could prompt violence on the other side of the country. Arizona, in particular, has been identified by the FBI as a hotspot for midterm election violence. This summer, a thirty-eight-year-old Massachusetts resident was arrested for threatening to attack Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs with an explosive device unless she resigned. Just a few weeks ago, a sixty-four-year-old man from Iowa was arrested for threatening to hang Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman. A poll reported that one in five Republican men thought that violence against the US government was justifiable “right now.” The “Big Lie” lives on, and election deniers are on the ballot in nearly every state in the country.

Issues such as gun violence, immigration, and abortion are being discussed in existential terms, with hyper-partisanship, political polarization, and disinformation combining to form a toxic environment in which violence and the threat of violence have been normalized as part of acceptable political discourse. Violent extremists rally around these issues. Numerous FBI and law enforcement bulletins over the past several years have highlighted the threat posed by militia violent extremists, motivated in large part by the 2nd Amendment and gun rights. Another concern is abortion-related violent extremists (both proponents and opponents of abortion), in addition to conspiracy theorists like QAnon adherents, and a range of anti-government and anti-authority violent extremists. Accelerationists, a collection of violent extremists who seek to disrupt society and sow chaos, have frequently discussed attacking critical infrastructure, which makes election-related sites attractive targets.

During the administration of former President Donald Trump, segments of the population—mainly the most zealous Trump supporters—attempted to legitimize political violence, an effort that led directly to the disastrous Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021. In the five years following Trump’s 2016 elections, the number of recorded threats against members of Congress increased more than tenfold, according to data from the US Capitol Police. Yet rather than attempt to tamp down the violence and attenuate the cascade of violent rhetoric, many lawmakers and influential media figures have instead decided to fan the flames. Those positioned at the fringes of the political spectrum have been rewarded by staking out extreme positions and speaking in ominous tones. There is also the ongoing challenge presented by relationships between organized militia groups, including the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters, and GOP leaders at national, state, and local levels.

The temperature has been rising steadily since the August FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where agents were sent to investigate the mishandling of classified documents. Almost immediately, far-right sites such as Gab, Parler, and Telegram exploded with violent threats against President Joe Biden, Democrats, and the FBI. On Twitter, the use of the term “civil war” went from 500 tweets an hour to 6,000 in the aftermath of the raid. The next day, a Trump supporter who claimed to be present at the Jan. 6 insurrection and is believed to have links to the Proud Boys, launched a violent attack against the FBI office in Cincinnati and was killed in a shootout with federal agents.

Foreign Rivals Exploiting Homemade Divisions

Beyond the domestic turmoil generated by the midterm elections, there are opportunities for US adversaries, including China, to amplify divisive messages and engage in malign influence operations designed to sow further distrust in American institutions. Both Russia and Iran have previously engaged in meddling in American elections through amplifying disinformation. When the United States is preoccupied with unrest at home, it offers Washington’s competitors a chance to launch asymmetric attacks, including through the use of mis-, dis-, and malinformation campaigns. (Misinformation is false information spread without ill-intent, disinformation means the false information is spread with ill intent, and mal-information is information with malware included.) And even while the US government is looking to work more closely with social media companies and tech firms to combat election-related disinformation, non-state actors are invariably more adaptive than government agencies, which can be cumbersome and sclerotic in their response. With Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter, there are worries that content moderation will be relaxed, allowing a torrent of new accounts online that seek to push the envelope around racist and misogynist tweets.

Diagnosing the problem of political violence, much of it fueled by rampant disinformation, is far easier than proposing a workable solution. As evidenced by the debacle that was the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board rollout, it seems clear that any efforts by the US government to combat disinformation will be met with fierce resistance and partisan rancor. This does perhaps suggest a far greater role for the private sector, which is better positioned to marshal the resources necessary and convene expertise in this area, to help frame the debate by relying on rigorous data analysis and empirical evidence.

Unifying the country along bipartisan lines and “working across the aisle” seem like relics from a bygone era. Even Biden, who ran his presidential campaign on doing exactly that, delivered a speech in early September in Philadelphia where he railed against Trump and MAGA Republicans, stating that they “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” Some found the speech unnecessarily antagonistic, aimed at firing up the president’s domestic base, but perhaps provoking political extremists at the same time, reinforcing the imagery of a deeply divided nation where Republicans and Democrats view each other as enemies, not political opponents.

Looking Ahead

Americans are bracing for a volatile election season with well-founded fears of political violence. The events of Jan. 6, 2021, were a great stain on the nation. But rather than the culmination of an anomalous series of events, the insurrection may be the blueprint for US domestic politics going forward. If that is the case, the country is in for a tumultuous decade, with serious doubts about the strength of American democracy and a political system that rewards extremists, rather than punishing them at the polls.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that seeks to publish well-argued, policy-oriented articles on American foreign policy and national security priorities.

Image: Defense Department