Trump and the FBI

A lot happened last week. Specifically, a lot happened if you’re Donald Trump. On Monday, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Mar-A-Lago and removed 11 sets of classified documents from Trump’s home office. Since you’ve undoubtedly been following the news, you know things just got crazier from there.

Predictably MAGA online communities lost their shit over the FBI’s search. I spent time observing chatter in right-wing spaces all week, and while I expected calls for violence and more threats of civil war, I was taken aback at just how quickly it ramped up. As Ben Collins reported for NBC News, the top comment on a Patriots.win (AKA The Donald) thread discussing it was simply “lock and load.” Another top poster to the thread who “quoted a notorious antisemitic Nazi rallying cry” is currently awaiting sentencing for his activities at the Capitol on January 6.

But this week, I’d like to talk about the violence and threats directed at the FBI agents who participated in the search. Agents who were just doing their jobs almost certainly included Trump voters in their ranks. MAGA communities immediately directed hostility and threats of violence at the FBI generally and started threatening to find the agents present at Mar-A-Lago and doxxing them.

On Thursday, an armed man, ​​Ricky Walter Shiffer, attempted to breach an FBI office in Cincinnati, fled the scene, and…