'Executions are warranted': Far-right groups plot out violent post-election fantasies
Far-right extremists are laying out their violent fantasies online in the light of Tuesday election result, Wired reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, supporters of President-elect Donald Trump are calling for mass executions of dissidents and posting murderous memes. “Build the gallows!!” said one post on the far-right, antisemitic platform Gab.
This comes after Trump spent much of the election campaign promising to run as an authoritarian, pushed constant conspiracy theories about his enemies rigging the election or the justice system, and faced limited accountability over claims he incited a violent mob to attack the Capitol on January 6 following his 2020 election loss — all of which seems to have empowered his more radical supporters to think about purges.
"A poster on Patriots.win, a pro-Trump forum, shared an AI drawing of Nancy Pelosi with a noose around her neck about to be hanged," noted the report — while some other posters "shared images of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ... suggesting he too be hanged 'for high treason.'"
One Truth Social poster wrote, "Many executions are warranted. These traitors are a terminal cancer that MUST BE completely eradicated to make America healthy again,” while another wrote “It sounds like a Military Court should sentence her [Kamala Harris] to death. Yes?”
Prior to the election, many far-right radicals were glorifying the idea of domestic terrorism or civil war, no matter who won the election, arguing that it was best to burn down the whole system and create their ideal dictatorship in its place.
Trump, for his part, has often indulged in violent rhetoric, calling for retired generals from his own administration, like Mark Milley, to be executed for treason when they spoke out against him.