Thread by @ariehkovler

There won't be a rerun of Jan 6. The riot at the Capitol was unique in many ways: Trump called for it; it was the last chance to "overturn" the election; it was huge in scale.

https://twitter.com/TimAlberta/status/1348328968081072133

The coming Trumpist events on Jan 17 and Jan 20 will probably be much smaller in scale, especially in DC. The MAGA crew can't buy another flight and take more days off work so soon after Jan 6.

Some of the Trumpist forums are actively suspicious of these events, claiming they're FBI or Antifa traps. A lot of people at TDW felt that the *design* of this flyer was too lefty to be real!

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean everything will be OK. The statehouse events on Jan 17 have the potential to turn violent, where a few hundred people could be enough to overwhelm local authorities.

MAGA anger at a lot of the GOP is high, as well as against Dems. Even red states could see problems, so I hope authorities are prepared.

My real worry, though, is the hundreds of thousands – maybe millions – of Americans who were convinced that Trump would win on Jan 6. These people are angry, confused and scared. And, in many cases, armed.

MAGA purists, absolutely convinced that Trump had won, are now laughingstocks. People deep in QAnon, convinced Trump is fighting and winning a war against child-murdering cabals, have lost their families and given everything for the cause.

https://twitter.com/GraceSpelman/status/1348307846568570881

My worry, then, isn't the mass action of Jan 6, or even particularly the state-level stuff on Jan 17. It's an ongoing risk of, bluntly, MAGA-linked terrorism.

Some of this terrorism might come from militia movements, as in the case of the kidnap plot against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The FBI watches these movements, and I suspect they'll become an increasing part of the FBI workload.

Some of it will come from accelerationist (ie Boogaloo) movements, taking advantage of the disruption, as we saw in May and June en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_boog…

The hardest violence to stop, though, will be from radicalised individuals who pick up a gun and decide to go to 'war' — against Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Mike Pence, local politicians, the media and tech companies.

People are listening to Lin Wood over on Parler saying Pence is a traitor, John Roberts a child molester and Biden a spy who all need to be executed.

Angry Trump supporters are saying that any Congressman, especially any GOP Congressman, who voted against overturning the election is a traitor worthy of death. Some of them mean it literally.

Someone put functional bombs at the DNC and RNC on Jan 6. As far as we know, that person has not been apprehended yet.

I'm not saying for sure that there will be a MAGA terror attack. But if there's one, there will be more than one. They would feed off of each other, making responsible media coverage very important.

And so I don't think I'm disagreeing with @TimAlberta. US politics, especially at the local level, is going to be nasty, scary and potentially dangerous.

But we need to know what we're fighting and avoid the temptation to fight the last war. I hope inauguration goes off without any major disruption, but that's the beginning of all this, not the end.

A sharp point made by @barmyFP: sadly, we should also expect suicides, and domestic murder-suicides. I think after Jan 20, when Trump leaves office, many people deep in QAnon will take it very hard.

https://twitter.com/barmyFP/status/1348400260180279298