‘Reward Friends and Punish Enemies’: Trump Supporters Talk Retribution, Civil War After FBI Mar-a-Lago Raid

Alex GriffingAug 9th, 2022, 4:32 pm
 

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As news broke on Monday night of the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida mansion, pro-Trump commentators and online supporters immediately began to call for political retribution and raised the specter of domestic political violence.

The opinion editor of Newsweek took to Twitter and called for the punishing of “enemies” and noted that America is beyond civil discourse.

“The imperative of this late hour, in order to even attempt to rebalance our wildly off-balance pendulum, is to wield political power to reward friends and punish enemies, to reward good and punish evil, within the confines of the rule of law,” wrote Josh Hammer, urging his Twitter followers to “Wake up and learn what time it is.”

The FBI reportedly searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence to collect classified material the president took from the executive office of the president instead of handing it over to the National Archives as is required by law.

Trump released a statement on Monday confirming the search and claimed his “beautiful home” was “currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) baselessly claimed that Biden had “weaponized” the FBI against Trump.

“This is the rogue behavior of communist countries, NOT the United States of America!!!,” Greene tweeted. “These are the type of things that happen in countries during civil war.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) played the fear angle and wrote, “If the FBI can raid a U.S. President, imagine what they can do to you.” Stefanik’s sentiment was shared by Donald Trump, Jr. who tweeted a meme with a picture of his father saying, “IN REALITY THEY’RE NOT AFTER ME, THEY ARE AFTER YOU. IM JUST IN THE WAY.”

House GOP leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) put Attorney General Merrick Garland on notice to expect investigations if the Republicans retake the House, insisting Garland “preserve your documents and clear your calendar.”

Right-wing American-Canadian political commentator Steven Crowder took to Twitter and wrote, “Tomorrow is war. Sleep well.” Former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka offered a similar sentiment and called the FBI’s actions a “declaration of war.”

Far-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec chimed in saying “federal security state has declared war on Donald J Trump and his supporters.”

“Are you ready?” Posobiec added ominously.

As the rhetoric from Trumpworld ramped up, “civil war” began trending on Twitter. “A big spike in tweets referencing ‘civil war’ right after the news of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago broke last night,” noted CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, citing Dataminr.

Vice’s David Gilbert reported on the speech online:

“Civil War 2.0 just kicked off,” one user wrote on Twitter, with another adding, “One step closer to a kinetic civil war.” Others said they were ready to take part: “I already bought my ammo.”

BlazeTV’s Steve Deace tweeted, “Fun fact: if the total amount of casualties in The Civil War were prorated for today’s U.S. population, they would’ve eclipsed over 6 million.”

The tweet was retweeted by far-right media personalities like the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh and the comments became littered with calls to violence, like, “Is there that many lefties. Guess we will find out.” Others made jokes about the Holocaust.

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Alex Griffing - Senior Editor

Alex Griffing is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Send tips via email: alexanderg@mediaite.com. Follow him on Twitter: @alexgriffing