Minutes after news broke of the impeachment of former President Donald Trump, a comment on the pro-Trump internet forum Patriots.win, also known as TheDonald, shot to the top of the message board.
“****ACCELERA,” reads the comment, written by a user named TheSpeakerfortheDead, in full.
Beneath that user, others quickly joined in, saying the grand jury that indicted Trump is «guilty of treason» and his personal information must be made public.
The word “accelerate” is a reference to the far-right term accelerationism, the idea that the state should be abolished, usually violently, and replaced with a new one.
It is one of a variety of comments posted online on far-right forums after Trump’s impeachment. Many of those forums often host violent rhetoric, and some were integral to the planning around the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill.
While there is still little evidence of similar planning for riots in the real world, extremism researchers are keeping an eye on the various calls for everything from targeted attacks on the district attorney who brought the case to a new civil war.
“Accelerationism is a far-right concept defined by cynicism and disbelief in the legitimacy of the democratic process or in the functions of government,” said Jared Holt, a research fellow at the nonprofit Institute for Strategic Dialogue who studies extremism. «Subscribers suggest as a solution a series of actions that are often violent and intended to compromise or hasten what they believe to be the inevitable collapse of that system.»
Holt said the term was used earlier in the decade to describe white supremacist extremist groups like the Atomwaffen, which frequently agitate and commit acts of violence. Some users on pro-Trump forums have begun to embrace the nomenclature as increasingly radical and violent rhetoric has seeded their space.
“The hope is that by advocating the destruction of those systems or the destabilization of society, whether through mass violence or deliberate misinformation, by playing a role in the collapse, they will also cement a position for themselves when are rebuilding. in his own image,» Holt said.
Holt and other extremism researchers have seen frequent references to the far-right’s accelerationist rhetoric since the news of Trump’s impeachment.
Buoyed by claims about liberal megadonor George Soros’s ties to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, some users have consistently called for violence and assassination attempts. Soros never met or spoke to Bragg, according to a CNBC reportbut Bragg received donation money, along with other progressive-leaning district attorneys, through the Color of Change super PAC after Soros donated $1 million to him.
Why can’t we put a bounty on Bragg’s head? Time to fight lawlessness with lawlessness,” wrote one Patriots.win user.
“Hey, a lot of us are thinking the same thing, but if I said what really should happen, I’d be accused of ‘terrorist threats…’,” another user replied.
Others said the day of his possible arrest «hopefully» will be remembered as a «day of massacre.»
The threats, which were compiled in a report by the nonprofit research group Advance Democracy, were directed at Bragg, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Soros and law enforcement. The Advance Democracy report said they had «not identified any definitive plans by users to engage in violence or any large-scale organizing activity.»
However, users on the pro-Trump forum encouraged those who did not want to «form organized militias» to «assume lone wolf mentalities,» «arm themselves with suicide bombers,» and «publicly disclose jurors.»
The former president’s rhetoric has done little to quell the anger of supporters and at times appears to play on accelerationist ideas. In a post on Truth Social shortly after news of his impeachment broke, Trump said the United States was now a «third world country» and that «the country is dying.» Trump had previously warned of the potential for «death and destruction» if he faced criminal charges.
“Some Trump supporters are looking at a system they believe is rigged against them. Some of them are embracing this concept of saying, ‘We have to break the system instead of trying to sell people on our ideas,’” Holt said. «It is contempt and even contempt for the systems of democracy.»