Although there were no credible allegations of fraud contributing to Donald Trump’s victory on Tuesday, and the vote did not even appear to have been close, the election was tainted by foreign interference, a common occurrence in every US election since 2016.
There has been a constant stream of disinformation and multiple attempts by Russia to interfere in the electoral process this year. As the election approaches, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has named Russia as the most important country. “most active” foreign threat, highlighting that Moscow was conducting influence operations with the aim of undermining American confidence in the integrity of our elections.
On Election Day, bomb threats were issued to polling places in the battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin, with the FBI saying the hoax threats emanated from Russian email domains. Two polling stations in Georgia had to be temporarily evacuated, and it remains unclear whether this deterred voters. In early September, an indictment against two employees of RT (formerly Russia Today, a Kremlin propaganda outlet) detailed a plan to channel 10 million dollars to fund prominent right-wing commentators in the United States, who are part of a pro-Trump media platform registered in Tennessee.
The Russians also operated an effective network of “lookalike” websites that imitated legitimate American media outlets like the Washington Post but published fake news to undermine confidence in the election and increase polarization.
Russia was not the only foreign actor involved, as China and Iran sought to conduct “hack and leak” operations during and after the election.
Trump’s predilection for praising Russian dictator Vladimir Putin makes it unlikely he will raise this issue in their future conversations or meetings. In the past, Trump has sided with Putin over the U.S. intelligence community and has consistently brought up the “Russian hoax” to downplay Russian interference in U.S. elections.
With such a hands-off approach from the federal government, Russian interference in the U.S. political system and American culture is an inevitability. Many are concerned about these potential sources of domestic instability, including a surge in far-right violence that could be encouraged by foreign actors or by Trump himself.
It is certainly true that we would have been in a perilous situation if Vice President Kamala Harris had won by a small margin and if Trump had called the results “rigged”: a few days ago, that seemed to be the most obvious line. direct to political violence in the United States. the day after the elections.
And of course there is counterterrorism analysts who worry about a violent reaction from the far left to a new Trump presidency. Some on the far left view a second Trump term as an existential crisis and will likely be motivated to take to the streets in protest. Trump has threatened to deploy the U.S. military to quell protesters, and if he follows through, it could lead to a serious escalation of left-wing violence. Other issues – including access to abortion, climate change and the war in Gaza – could also mobilize some on the left to view their causes as warranting violent resistance.
But another byproduct of four more years of Trump It could very well be a series of incidents like the one the country experienced during his first term, when racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists, including neo-Nazis and white supremacists, launched attacks at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. , where a woman was killed after being hit by a car; a Pittsburgh synagogue, where violence killed 11 people and injured six others; and a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, where a gunman killed 23 people and injured nearly two dozen.
The attackers in the Pittsburgh and El Paso incidents were motivated in part by “Great Replacement Theorya white supremacist cliché claiming that the ongoing “replacement” of the white, Christian population in the United States is the deliberate strategy of a nefarious cabal. In December 2023, Trump said undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” As Anne Applebaum said underlinesTrump has frequently used dehumanizing language such as “vermin,” a style and approach reminiscent of Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini.
Speaking in mid-October in Arizona, Trump said“When I win on November 5, the migrant invasion will end and the restoration of our country will begin.” There is no reason not to take Trump at his word. How he intends to end the “invasion” has never been clear. Some Americans, as happened in Pittsburgh and El Paso, may seek to take matters into their own hands. It’s not unrealistic to see a surge in far-right attacks on immigrants, with perpetrators saying they are doing what the president has asked, taking back the country from what he calls “enemies within.” He might even pardon them of federal charges, as he said. he would forgive terrorists who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
As demonstrated by the terrorist attack perpetrated by a far-right extremist against African Americans at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in May 2022 or the shooting of three African-Americans in a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, in August 2023, racially motivated violence is not unique to the Trump administration. However, what violent extremists perceive as a sign of tacit approval – based on the violent rhetoric of Trump himself – could lead to a rise in domestic terrorism in a country that remains anxious, angry and well-armed.
Colin P. Clarke is a research director at the Soufan Group, an intelligence and security consulting firm based in New York.
