Enabled by online anonymity, threats toward anyone perceived as an enemy are now commonplace occurrences. While many are directed at elected officials, such as opponents of Jim Jordan’s nomination as speaker of the House, it’s now common to target judges, juries, teachers—even hospitals. According to the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center, last year federal prosecutions for these threats were the highest in a decade and are only expected to rise.
Social Media
Social media has greatly aided the rise in threatening language and online abuse. Large accounts like Libs of TikTok, which has 2.7 million X/Twitter followers, use their significant platforms to target others, inevitably leading to waves of threatening messages. Elon Musk’s purchase of that platform has made things significantly worse. He’s brought back banned far-right accounts, loosened content moderation, and made increasingly racist and antisemitic posts himself. These reached a new low in November when he wrote that a post that claimed Jews were pushing “dialectical hatred” against whites through support for liberal immigration policies was the “actual truth.”
Punishment
Even beyond January 6, the far right has kept the legal system busy. Although well after the fact, some tiki-torch wielding marchers from the 2017 Charlottesville rally were arrested earlier this year, including planned speaker and far-right activist Augustus Invictus. And three massacre perpetrators were sentenced. Robert Bowers, who in 2018 murdered 11 at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, received a death sentence. Patrick Crusius, who killed 23 at an El Paso Walmart in 2019, as well as Anderson Aldrich, who killed five at Club Q in Denver in 2022, both received life in prison. So did Benjamin Smith, who committed one of four far-right murders in Portland, Oregon, between 2017 and 2022.
