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global project against hate and extremism
Experts Sound Alarm on Potential Right-Wing Violence Fueled by 'Election Denialism'
Online discussion of potential violence has been on the rise over the past month, as it was ahead of the 2020 election.
Oct 31, 2024
Recent violent incidents at a Democratic National Committee office in Arizona and ballot boxes in the Pacific Northwest have been accompanied by rising online discussion of potential political violence following the November 5 elections, with people in right-wing forums ramping up the spread of baseless claims that Democrats will "steal" the presidential election and threatening to help Republican nominee Donald Trump take power by force.
That's according to a study published this week by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), which warns the group is "seeing the same warning signs of political violence based on election denialism combined with violent language across fringe platforms that we saw in the weeks before the 2020 election and before the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol."
At the messaging platform Telegram, violent rhetoric related to denying the results of an election that hadn't even taken place yet rose by 317% over the course of October 2020, and GPAHE found an identical trend this past month.
Users have threatened to "shoot to kill any illegal voters," apparently referring to the supposed scourge of illegal voting by non-citizens that Republicans including Trump and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have vowed to defeat, despite the lack of evidence that such a problem exists. A Telegram group frequented by members of the Minnesota Proud Boys have called for "patriots" to "take action" and attend a protest at the Minnesota state Capitol on November 2.
On other platforms, GPAHE co-founder Heidi Beirich told The Guardian on Thursday, the numbers of political violence threats "have been lower so far this year, but they are quickly rising as we approach Election Day."
On Gab in 2020, violent election rhetoric rose 462% during October and shot up "a staggering 8,309% the week of the election," said GPAHE. This month, the rhetoric has gone up by about 105%, with users saying people engaged in "election fraud"—a vanishingly rare occurrence—should face "public executions."
"The military needs to be brought in," at least one user wrote this month, echoing Trump's statement that an "enemy within on Election Day "should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military."
"The Trump campaign, its surrogates, or right-wing sympathizers could invite unrest, threats, or violence to try putting their collective thumb on the scales at key decision points."
Beirich told The Guardian that GPAHE is also seeing "posts targeting election workers with violence, a sign that real world activity could escalate."
The report was released as authorities investigate two incidents in Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon in which devices were used to set ballot boxes on fire, resulting in damage to hundreds of ballots cast by early voters. Officials have linked the alleged arson acts to an incident on October 8 in which a suspicious device was found in a ballot drop box.
A man named Jeffrey Michael Kelly was also arrested last week for shooting at the Democratic National Committee office in Tempe, Arizona. Authorities found 120 guns, 250,000 rounds of ammunition, and other weapons at his home, and said he was likely planning to commit a "mass casualty event" ahead of the election.
Those incidents and the memory of the violent riot on January 6, 2021, in which Trump urged thousands of his supporters to descend on the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election results, are likely contributing to rising fears among voters about violence after next week's election. About 4 in 10 voters told The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research this week that they are "extremely" or "very" concerned about violence related to election denial.
In an analysis of political violence risks in the U.S. on Tuesday, the International Crisis Group noted that current conditions in the country may lower the chances of violent attacks related to election denial compared to 2020.
The prosecution of leaders of the January 6 insurrection and investigations into groups involved have "dented these groups' capacity," wrote program director Michael Wahid Hanna.
President Joe Biden has also lowered the risk of Trump challenging a potential election loss the way he did in 2020, when he and his allies urged "fake electors" in seven states to falsely declare him the winner, among other efforts. Biden signed the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, which includes new rules for how Congress tallies electors chosen by each state and "raises the bar for any objection" to the election results, wrote Hanna.
However, added Hanna, "Trump himself remains a major risk factor" for violence after the election:
The Trump campaign, its surrogates, or right-wing sympathizers could invite unrest, threats, or violence to try putting their collective thumb on the scales at key decision points. Local officials told not to certify tallies and battleground-state Republican state legislatures urged to appoint 'faithless' electors could be subject to personal threats or rowdy demonstrations designed to show that 'the people' support Trump's preferred course of action. Later, Republican lawmakers in Congress could be intimidated in comparable ways. Democrats, who would presumably fight an effort of this sort at every stage in court, could be exposed to similar or worse. Any anti-Trump street protests, meanwhile, could very well be met with counter-demonstrations including far-right elements, which could lead to clashes, with the risk of deadly violence rising at each new phase of legal maneuvering.
With many in the Republican Party relentlessly transmitting the message that "its candidate cannot lose unless the other side cheats," wrote Hanna, the risk of political violence after the election can't be ignored.
"Responsible actors with Trump's ear should prevail upon him to stick to the rules," he wrote, "Election boards, state legislators, members of Congress, and judges will need to do the same: The country's electoral laws are in better shape than they were four years ago, but the reforms will only matter if the country's institutions adhere to them in good faith."
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'The Other Project 2025': The Lesser-Known Blueprint for Trump 2.0
A relatively new think tank "filled with Trump loyalists and insiders" has tried to avoid "the kind of firestorm that has engulfed the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025" while crafting its competing agenda.
Aug 29, 2024
While critics of former U.S. President Donald Trump continue to sound the alarm over Project 2025 and its potential implementation if the Republican nominee returns to the White House, a rival right-wing policy agenda has received far less national attention.
The well-publicized initiative, officially called the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, includes personnel recruitment, training, a 180-day playbook, and a policy agenda that is over 900 pages. Project 2025 is spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, which has been locked in a "shadow war" with the America First Policy Institute (AFPI).
The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) last year released a robust takedown of Project 2025, calling it a "far-right playbook for American authoritarianism." Since then, the group has published periodic updates about the Heritage-led effort to influence the policy and government employees under the next GOP president.
Wednesday's edition has a section on AFPI—or as GPAHE called it, "the Other Project 2025."
"Founded in 2021 by former Trump administration officials Linda McMahon, Larry Kudlow, and Brooke Rollins, AFPI has positioned itself as a formidable rival to the long-established Heritage Foundation, creating a notable divide in conservative policymaking spheres," GPAHE explained. "This conflict stems from both ideological differences and personal rivalries."
Although Heritage has been around for over half a century, GPAHE continued, "it has become a hub for younger, more ardent supporters of the MAGA movement," while "AFPI is generally seen as more sympathetic to the pre-Trump conservative consensus."
As Democrats—including the party's presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz—have campaigned against Project 2025, Trump has tried to distance himself from it, even though at least 140 people who worked in his first administration, including six former Cabinet secretaries, have been involved with the project.
So far, AFPI, a nonprofit that does not disclose its donors and cannot endorse political candidates, "has sought to avoid public attention—or the kind of firestorm that has engulfed the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025," Politicoreported Thursday. However, like the widely known initiative, the more covert one has clear ties to Trump.
AFPI is "filled with Trump loyalists and insiders" and "was blessed by Trump before it was founded in 2021," according to Politico. While the think tank said in a statement that it "does not speak on behalf of any officeholder or campaign," the outlet pointed out that "Trump has hosted fundraisers for AFPI at his Mar-a-Lago club, his PAC Save America donated to the group, and his first major speech in Washington since leaving the White House was at an AFPI event."
Additionally, Politico noted, "its CEO, Brooke Rollins, has had a close relationship with Trump for years and has discussed the think tank's transition plans with him, according to two people familiar with the meeting; this month, the former president named the group's board chair, Linda McMahon, to co-lead the official transition team."
Other key leaders on Trump's transition team include his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio); his eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump; former Hawaii Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a conspiracy theorist who just suspended his Independent White House run and endorsed the GOP nominee.
"AFPI is not becoming the transition," an unnamed source reportedly familiar with the Trump campaign's transition prep told Politico. "But by virtue of how they are situated and that we are in a very late timeline for this work, AFPI and the transition may be a distinction without a difference."
GPAHE highlighted that while the rivals have some "differing approaches to key issues like economic policy, foreign relations, and the role of government," there is also overlap. Specifically, the group detailed, "AFPI's policy document, while more concise at 250 pages compared to Project 2025's 900 pages, outlines similar priorities in energy and environmental policy."
One analysis from earlier this month shows that if the Project 2025 energy policies were imposed, climate-wrecking pollution would surge 2.7 billion metric tons by 2030 and cause there to be 1.7 million fewer jobs in that year, compared to the current trajectory. There have also been scathing critiques of its education, healthcare, immigration, and tax policies—other areas where there are some similarities with AFPI.
The AFPI agenda, as Politico summarized, "focuses on deregulation of the federal government, greater rights for religious groups, and an aggressive crackdown on crime, among other issues. It supports greater oil and gas production, the completion of the border wall, and the limitation of federal spending. It has also expressed support for declaring Antifa a domestic terrorist group and making Trump's tax cut legislation permanent."
Trump and Republican lawmakers have openly campaigned on extending reductions from their Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 if elected in November—even though the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said in May that doing so would add $4.6 trillion to the national deficit.
In response to the CBO findings, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said that "the Republican tax plan is to double down on Trump's handouts to corporations and the wealthy, run the deficit into the stratosphere, and make it impossible to save Medicare and Social Security or help families with the cost of living in America."
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Analysis Exposes Trumpian Project 2025 as 'Far-Right Playbook for American Authoritarianism'
"Our plea to political leaders and to the media is to accurately describe Project 2025 as a dangerous and unconstitutional attempt to move us towards an authoritarianism guided by Christian nationalism."
Nov 13, 2023
As former Republican U.S. President Donald Trump campaigns with openly fascist rhetoric, a research and advocacy group on Monday published an exposé of the Heritage Foundation-led 2025 Presidential Transition Project.
Project 2025, as it is also known, builds on Heritage's latest Mandate for Leadership, a series which since the Reagan administration has served as the right-wing think tank's to-do list for the next Republican president.
The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) put out a detailed analysis of Project 2025, which the group described as a "far-right playbook for American authoritarianism" and "a threat to a multiracial, diverse democracy."
"Project 2025 is an authoritarian roadmap to dismantling a thriving, inclusive democracy for all."
Across 13 sections, the GPAHE report introduces the project, explains the role of Christian nationalism, and details efforts to gut the civil service, reverse progress on racial equality, eviscerate LGBTQ+ rights, restrict reproductive freedom, impose hardline immigration rules, roll back climate action, end "woke" military policies, overhaul public education, and curb human rights.
The analysis also features a full list of organizational supporters and profiles of key backers, including the Family Research Council, Heartland Institute, Moms for Liberty, and Turning Point USA.
"The path to authoritarianism usually first involves democratic backsliding, propelled by political figures and parties with authoritarian instincts who employ specific tactics," the report states. "These factors are evident in Project 2025, which explicitly advocates politicizing independent institutions by replacing the federal bureaucracy with conservative activists and removing independence for many agencies."
"The entire project is devoted to aggrandizing executive power by centralizing authority in the presidency, and a key aspect of democratic backsliding is viewing opposition elements as attempting to destroy the 'real' community, an essential aspect to quashing dissent," the document continues. "Project 2025 paints progressives and liberals as outside acceptable politics, and not just ideological opponents, but inherently anti-American and 'replacing American values.' Targeting vulnerable communities is a core tenet of Project 2025."
"Project 2025 is very clearly on a path to Christian nationalism as well as authoritarianism. It rejects the constitutional separation of church and state, rather privileging religious beliefs over civil laws. Religious freedom is referenced throughout the plan and is seen to trump all other civil rights which should be subsumed to an individual's religious rights," the report adds. "The message that America must remain Christian, that Christianity should enjoy a privileged place in society, and that the government must take steps to ensure this is clear in every section of the plan, as is the idea that American identity cannot be separated from Christianity."
The document also stresses the role of Trump in degrading U.S. democracy and promoting the policies that the project aims to advance. Trump is facing four criminal cases—two of which relate to his efforts to flip the 2020 election—and lawsuits arguing that he is constitutionally disqualified from holding office again after inciting the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Still, he is the GOP front-runner.
During a Saturday campaign rally, Trump pledged to "root out the communist, Marxist, fascist, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country," claiming that "the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within." The comments fueled demands for more serious media coverage of his fascist threats.
Even before Trump's latest comments, GPAHE co-founder Heidi Beirich argued to Salon last week that given his chances of winning the White House next year, "the public needs to know about policy plans, such as the program being designed for the next conservative president by the Heritage Foundation, called Project 2025."
Beirich said in a statement Monday that the project "does not reflect the values of the American people, and our plea to political leaders and to the media is to accurately describe Project 2025 as a dangerous and unconstitutional attempt to move us towards an authoritarianism guided by Christian nationalism."
GPAHE co-founder Wendy Via—who, like Beirich, is an alumna of the Southern Poverty Law Center—similalry said that "voters, political figures, and the media must be on alert that Project 2025 is an authoritarian roadmap to dismantling a thriving, inclusive democracy for all."
The GPAHE report was released as Axiosreported Monday that Trump's inner circle plans to purge from government "anyone viewed as hostile to the hard-edged, authoritarian-sounding plans he calls 'Agenda47'" and his allies "are spending tens of millions of dollars to install a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists" in "legal, judicial, defense, regulatory, and domestic policy jobs."
"The government-in-waiting is being orchestrated by the Heritage Foundation's well-funded Project 2025, which already has published a 920-page policy book from 400+ contributors," the outlet explained. "Heritage president Kevin Roberts tells us his apparatus is 'orders of magnitude' bigger than anything ever assembled for a party out of power."
Trump's 2024 campaign claimed Monday that his Agenda47 "is the only official comprehensive and detailed look at what President Trump will do when he returns to the White House," and "while the campaign is appreciative of any effort to provide suggestions about a second term, the campaign is not collaborating with them."
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