Perched on the side of the bridge that connects Palm Beach Island to mainland Florida, a day after the FBI searched Donald Trump’s nearby Mar-a-Lago resort, Mary Ann Robinson held an alcoholic drink from White Claw to a hand and made a railing. against federal law enforcement.
“When they attacked our president[’s home], I felt hurt, then anger,” said the retired health administrator. “I come to these rallies to call attention to what’s going on in our government. We know that Godless committees will never destroy this republic as long as we are here.”
Robinson was part of a relatively small group of defiant and staunch pro-Trump supporters who were staging what was largely a defense of the former president on Tuesday, many of them waving huge flags and honking car horns .
His reactions were tied to conspiracy theories about both the 2020 election and the political motivation behind the FBI search, echoing Trump’s own statement about the raid. They also suggested ominously that the backlash could turn violent, especially if the former president was arrested or barred from seeking re-election in 2024.
“We’re going to fight to the end, whatever it takes,” said Mark Harvey, a Florida local who fishes in the waters around Trump’s residence and introduced himself as “Beach Cracker.” “Ninety-nine percent of Republicans are armed and ready to go. We’re ready to take it to the next level if it comes down to that.”
These threats and fury were not limited to just Palm Beach. From the moment Trump announced that his home had been searched by federal agents, anger spread across conservative America.
Republican lawmakers blasted the FBI and Justice Department as complicit in an oppressive federal regime and a “deep state” bureaucracy bent on stifling any political opposition, though the search for Mar-a- Lago was approved by a federal government. judge
“BREAK THE FBI!” tweeted Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican lawmaker from Georgia and one of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill.
Other Republicans linked the FBI’s move on Trump to the $700 billion economic package recently passed by the US Senate and endorsed by US President Joe Biden. The bill includes a measure that bolsters funding for the Internal Revenue Service to audit the wealthiest tax evaders, which some conservatives characterized as another sign of the government’s looming crackdown.
Conservative protesters drive near Mar-a-Lago in support of Trump on Tuesday © Giorgio Viera / AFP / Getty Images
“The federal regime is targeting those it doesn’t like for disadvantaged treatment,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told supporters in a fundraising email Wednesday. “We are being asked to fall in line or face the consequences. Now, the Regime is getting another 87,000 IRS agents to handle against their adversaries.”
When Scott Perry, a Republican lawmaker from Pennsylvania who is one of Trump’s staunchest supporters on Capitol Hill, revealed that his phone had been seized by the FBI on Tuesday after facing scrutiny from an investigation by Congress on the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, more anger erupted on the right.
“This is America, and these Gestapo tactics are not welcome. There will be a reckoning,” Lauren Boebert, the pro-Trump Republican representative of Colorado, said on Twitter.
The response has highlighted the extent to which many Republicans have leaned toward Trumpian skepticism of federal law enforcement in a party that has traditionally portrayed itself as tough on crime.
Even top Republican leaders in Congress openly attacked the DoJ and FBI in the wake of the probe, with Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican, vowing to investigate Attorney General Merrick Garland if they regain control of the chamber Leave of Congress on November.
Meanwhile, Republican candidates for office launched fundraising pledges in the wake of the search and promised retribution. “The question is what comes next,” said JD Vance, the author and venture capitalist who is running for a Senate seat in Ohio. “Or we have [a] Republic or we don’t. If we do, the people who have politicized the FBI in recent years will face investigations and prosecutions.”
recommended
Republican strategists hope the attack will cement their lead with American voters heading into the midterm elections expanding their base. But there is a risk that the unleashed anger could turn off moderate and independent voters by showing how deeply anti-Washington extremism has penetrated the GOP and how deeply the party remains under Trump’s hands.
On social media, anger erupted with equal force. In the hours following news of the attack at Mar-a-Lago, tweets referencing “civil war” and the “FBI Gestapo” spiked to a peak of more than 3,000 within an hour . Two days later, an average of 1,000 of those tweets were still being sent every hour.
Many on Twitter, Telegram and Trump’s alternative platform TruthSocial pointed to the attack as evidence of the continued targeting of Trump and his supporters by Biden and the so-called “Deep State.” Baseless online conspiracies quickly spread Tuesday and Wednesday accusing the FBI of obtaining evidence to prevent Trump from running for office in 2024.
In far-right spaces such as the QAnon Telegram channels and TheDonald and 4chan message boards, threats of violence were more explicit and targeted, with many posting death threats against Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray. A popular post on TheDonald read, “They’ve awakened a dragon and it’s coming for them.”
Meanwhile, former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon, who was convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena in the Jan. 6 investigation into the 2021 Washington Capitol attacks, urged supporters to to mobilize “Right now, we join together, we make the tables in November. I’m talking about 100 seats,” he told InfoWars on The Alex Jones Show on Tuesday.
“Get an overwhelming majority in the House, take the Senate, take every school board, every election board, every research board, every medical board in every state,” he added.
But it was outside Trump’s adopted home in Florida that feelings were most raw and unsettling. “When the FBI raided Trump’s house, we entered a whole new realm,” said Charles Molesphini, a retiree from Delray Beach, Florida, who smoked a cigar as his car played the national anthem under a American flag covered.
Linda Ulmer, a retiree from Jupiter Beach, Fla., who owned a commercial construction company with her late husband, added: “If Trump is in prison, there will be a civil war. People will take to the streets. Buildings will burn. People will tear down the Capitol.”