How Trump’s Rhetoric Fueled the Capitol Riot
The Path to Insurrection through 500+ sources
For a detailed account of all the developments, behind-the-scenes actions, and affiliations that led to the January 6th insurrection, you can read this incredibly thorough final report provided and referenced by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, which includes over 500 sources.
A constant sentiment expressed by pro-Trump individuals is that Trump never incited violence and didn't call for an "insurrection," but his rhetoric says otherwise.
This article is about shedding light on how Donald Trump's narratives around the election and his direct communication with his followers on social media led to one of the worst events in U.S. history, turning a large portion of the population against the established government and the peaceful transfer of power.
The previous articles in this series will help you gain a full understanding of all the mechanisms at play.
Table of Contents
Methodological Approach
Framing
Deliberate Ambiguity
From Words to Violence
Affiliates
Resources
Methodological Approach
January 6, 2021. Hordes of people storm the U.S. Capitol, the seat of the United States Congress, to stop the certification of the election, led by Donald Trump. One of the most important events in US political history. An amazingly charged but valuable example of the weaponization of media influence.
As a preface, this is not meant to be preaching to the choir. What happened was bad, even extremely committed Trump loyalists can agree on that, ignoring obvious outliers. The intention is to examine the language used to achieve such chaos. How did such a large part of society pledge allegiance to political deviance, and what could have been done to prevent it? What can we learn from these developments?
There are a lot of resources and a lot of very dedicated people collecting data and making it available to the public to answer these questions. It's about holding bad actors accountable, spreading awareness, and supporting future education efforts.
One example is Teddy Wilson, publisher of Radical Reports, who has created an interactive Capitol Riot Map that aims to visualize the more than 1,500 people who have been arrested, charged, or cited in connection with the Capitol Riot.
This map is a valuable representation of the sheer magnitude of the event, and the reach that Trump's movement has managed to amass. The impact of his rhetoric is the focus here.
Framing
It all began on election day, November 3, 2020. On election night, Trump, accompanied by 15-20 people, is waiting for the results, after which Trump was loudly told by one of his supporters that the election was stolen. While others reportedly suggested that they needed to do a recount and go out and claim there was still time. These reports were made by a White House guest who was present that night and spoke to investigators.1 A very interesting read on the organization and funding of the movement.
The next day, November 4, Trump addresses his supporters at the White House, claiming that there is an attempt to disenfranchise his voter base.2 He also threatened to pursue legal channels and urge the Supreme Court to rule on the disputed ballots.
I want to thank the American people for their tremendous support. Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight and a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we will not stand for it, we won't stand for it.
In the two months since November, Trump and his allies have claimed that the election was stolen and that it is necessary to push against the legislative system of the U.S. government. The final step in counting and validating the electoral votes in the presidential election was scheduled to take place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.3
Donald Trump knows this and arms his X (then Twitter) account with narratives to support the rioting at the US Capitol that very day, before his account is suspended on January 8, 2021.4
This is not a coincidence, and from what we have learned about Framing and Priming, as well as Agenda Setting, the previous two months, followed by the enormous amount of tweeting around January 6th, was a catalyst for what unfolded on that day.
Kellyanne Conway, who served as senior counselor to the president in the Trump administration from 2017-2020, shared a very interesting stance on Fox&Friends that can be linked to Trump's incitement to violence.
She said, “the more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order.”5
This goes back to a familiar concept discussed in my article on Trump's weaponization of language. He associates safety and security with him and him alone, blames rogue politicians and the deep state for undermining democracy, and calls on the general public to take decisive action against the establishment. Of course, only if the establishment isn't him at the time, since he will blame his setbacks on the deep state while taking credit for dismantling it if he achieves any of his political goals.
In a sense, the storming of the Capitol can show how an insurrection and escalation has been driven by Trump, framing it as a justified pushback to save democracy and the United States.
Deliberate Ambiguity
An example of Trump's wording causing confusion about his affiliation and positioning on the riot is his questionable choice of words during the September 29, 2020 presidential debate.
Chris Wallace (Fox News) brings up Trump's previous comments and says
You have repeatedly criticized the Vice-President for not specifically calling out Antifa and other left-wing extremist groups. But are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland.
After Biden and Trump go back and forth about naming a specific group for Trump to condemn, Biden asks him to denounce the Proud Boys, a North American far-right militant organization that engages in political violence.6
After several years of forging alliances with members of the Republican political establishment, the Proud Boys have carved out a niche for themselves as both a right-wing fight club and a volunteer security force for the GOP.
Trump quickly responds to this request, but his wording is troubling and invites misunderstanding.7
Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what: somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right wing problem this is a left-wing. This is a left-wing problem. . .
I have no problem with him positioning himself against Antifa, which is “a decentralized network of far-left militants that oppose what they believe are fascist, racist, or otherwise right-wing extremists.”8 And I will give him credit for telling the Proud Boys to stand back.
But “stand by”? All the definitions for this phrase go back to a call to help in times of need and to be present.9 Should they wait for further orders? Or stay ready to intervene if necessary? Why is he able to give them that order at all?
Well, the leader of the Proud Boys, Henry "Enrique" Tarrio, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other charges related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol.10 They ended up participating and playing a major role in the attack, according to U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia.
No organization put more boots on the ground at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 than the Proud Boys, and they were at the forefront of every major breach of the Capitol’s defenses, leading the on-the-ground efforts to storm the seat of government.
From Words to Violence
As mentioned above, Trump communicated directly with the public through his Twitter (X) account. In particular, the empowering language and calls to action caught the attention of researchers. Here are a few examples.
To understand the magnitude of these statements, one must look at the reactions they have provoked.
In the book Making Sense of Media and Politics, written and published by Professor Gadi Wolfsfeld in 2022, research conducted by Matthew, Dutt, Goyal, and Mukerjee on the spread and impact of hate speech on social media provides clear insight into the effects.11 To study the spread of hateful content surrounding the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, the researchers conducted a massive content analysis of 314,000 users and 21 million posts.12
We observe that the content generated by the hateful users tend to spread faster, farther and reach a much wider audience as compared to the content generated by normal users. We further analyze the hateful and non-hateful users on the basis of their account and network characteristics. An important finding is that the hateful users are far more densely connected among themselves. Overall, our study provides the first cross-sectional view of how hateful users diffuse hate content in online social media.
The transition from public discourse to criminal violence at the Capitol occurred through a month-long framing of the issue as a threat to democracy and the United States as a whole. While social media platforms were flooded with hateful rhetoric, Trump was able to make repeated accusations against the states, opposing political entities, and ultimately the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
In September 2020, after being asked if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the election, Trump refused and only answered about his plans when pressed.13
“Well, we're going to have to see what happens,” Trump said. “You know that I've been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.”
Pressed further, Trump said: “We'll want to have — get rid of the ballots and you'll have a very — we'll have a very peaceful — there won't be a transfer, frankly. There'll be a continuation.”
Affiliates
But Trump certainly wasn't the only person working toward this movement. His supporters try to dismiss the accusations that he incited violence, but it shows in his rhetoric and the responses it elicited from his supporters and allied groups.
There are many other resources that go into the connections between extremists and Trump's allies.14
For example, Ali Alexander15, a far-right activist, social media personality, and organizer of post-2020 pro-Trump events, who urged people to join the riot and posted videos during and after the storming of the Capitol, portraying it as a peaceful gathering after violence broke out. Journalist Kristen Dorer, who often covers right-wing extremism, saved his deleted posts on X.
As Doerer points out, this video was posted at 4:26 p.m., several hours after violence broke out and rioters began storming the Capitol. Trump also had several hours to respond to the chaos and call off the crowds, but he waited to do so until it was too late. This report details Trump's attempts to absolve himself of responsibility for the riot, both to the public and to the courts.16
Interestingly, Ali Alexander claims that he came up with the idea of January 6 in collaboration with 3 men in Congress, as he states in a now-deleted Periscope video reposted by investigative journalist Greg Palast.
I was the person who came up with the January 6 idea with Congressman Gosar, Congressman Mo Brooks and then Congressman Andy Biggs. We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress, while they were coting, so that who we couldn’t lobby, we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body hearing out loud war from outside.
In particular, he came under fire for inciting the masses by promoting insurrection and presenting it as a necessary means of opposing a tyrannical government.17
Standing in front of a sign declaring “MARTIAL LAW NOW,” so-called Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander led the crowd in chants of “Victory or death!” Alexander told activists, “Our government is only our government if it is legitimate” and declared, “1776 is always an option.” He said Stop the Steal activists are starting “a rebellion against the Deep State.”
In an interview, Alexander tries to claim that his statements were not meant to incite violence.18
Certainly, had we known in hindsight that there would be a riot, our language would have been different. But our language is normative to how we have talked about politics since 2007, 2008. “1776” is a very popular saying. You can meana couple different things, even “victory or death,” you know. It’s something I’ve been raked over the coals for, and rightfully so.
Alexander organized the Stop the Steal campaign, a term initially coined by Roger Stone, Trump's political adviser during his first term.19
At the time, Stone alleged first that Candidate Trump’s Republican rivals were attempting to steal Candidate Trump’s nomination. After Trump became the nominee, Stone repurposed the saying to claim that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would steal the presidency. When President Trump won the 2016 election, “Stop the Steal” was rendered moot—and did not become a significant political movement until President Trump’s defeat on election night in 2020. As early as November 5, 2020, Stone advised associates that he intended to reconstitute “Stop the Steal” by building an army of lawyers and suing “like there’s no tomorrow.”
From the looks of it, Stone is a true opportunist and was just waiting for his chance to push his agenda on any cause that would support it. After Ali Alexander founded "Stop the Steal" in Alabama, he teamed up with Stone and Alex Jones, a notable and historic figure in the landscape of incendiary rhetoric, who invited the likes of Enrique Tarrio, Stewart Rhodes and Roger Stone to his now auctioned off media network InfoWars. As an aside, he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to protect it from further civil litigation in the wake of defamation lawsuits over his claims that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax.
Alexander, white nationalist Nick Fuentes, and Alex Jones gathered at the governor’s mansion in Atlanta, Georgia, to talk about their intentions for January 620, threatening to “light the whole sh*t on fire” if Trump doesn’t win.21
Either they take Trump, prove that they won or we’re not gonna hand them back the country again, right? We’ll light the whole sh*t on fire
It's important to note that the FBI found no central coordination of violence by supporters of Trump, Alex Jones, or Roger Stone. But they did allege that cells of protesters, including supporters of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys groups, aimed to break into the Capitol, with no apparent plans for what to do once inside.22
"Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases," said a former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. "Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages."
The investigation is still ongoing, as online resources are constantly being updated with active databases of more than 1,000 charges against individuals in connection with the January 6 riot at the Capitol. It may be a long time before we know the full extent of the individuals and plots involved.23
Again, for a detailed account of all the developments, behind-the-scenes actions, and affiliations leading up to the January 6th uprising, you can read this incredibly thorough report provided and referenced by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, which includes over 500 sources.24
Much research on political polarization has emerged in the aftermath of the events, such as an article entitled The Rhetoric of Electoral Delegitimacy, published by Oxford University Press.25
The connections will be better captured in the upcoming Youtube documentary and podcast, as there is a huge amount of video and audio material to sift through.
Hopefully, you have gained some insight into the careful crafting of political power and unrest through the use of media and the various manipulative tools available to populists and anyone willing to actively shape a narrative.
All views and arguments presented in this article are my personal opinions, informed by the resources and theories referenced below, including the methodological approaches of Prof. Gadi Wolfsfeld. Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy and fairness in the discussion of public figures and events. This article is written in accordance with the right to freedom of expression and freedom of the press as guaranteed by Article 5 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is intended to contribute to the public discourse on matters of legitimate interest and not to defame or harm any individual.
Resources
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/10/18/donald-trump-election-interference-case-new-evidence/75714784007/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-claims-victory-states-undecided-supreme-court-white-house
https://www.house.gov/feature-stories/2017-1-18-electoral-college-vote-count#:~:text=Joint%20Session%20of%20Congress%20Makes%20the%20Final%20Tally&text=The%20joint%20session%20is%20the,during%20the%2058th%20Presidential%20Inauguration
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/tweets-january-6-2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/elections/conway-says-the-more-violence-erupts-the-better-it-is-for-trumps-re-election-prospects.html
https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/proud-boys
https://www.debates.org/voter-education/debate-transcripts/september-29-2020-debate-transcript/#:~:text=TRUMP%3A%C2%A0Proud%20Boys%2C%20stand%20back%20and%20stand%20by.%20But%20I%E2%80%99ll%20tell%20you%20what%2C%20I%E2%80%99ll%20tell%20you%20what%3A%20somebody%E2%80%99s%20got%20to%20do%20something%20about%20Antifa%20and%20the%20left%20because%20this%20is%20not%20a%20right%20wing%20problem%20this%20is%20a%20left%2Dwing.%20This%20is%20a%20left%2Dwing%20problem.%20.%20.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/who-are-antifa-and-are-they-threat
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/standby#:~:text=%3A%20to%20be%20present,an%20ambulance%20was%20standing%20by
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/proud-boys-leader-sentenced-22-years-prison-seditious-conspiracy-and-other-charges-related
Gadi Wolfsfeld, Making Sense of Media and Politics. Five Principles in Political Communication (2022), pp. 105-106.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334155686_Spread_of_Hate_Speech_in_Online_Social_Media
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-peaceful-transition-if-he-loses-get-rid-ballots-there-n1240896
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1110961285/the-next-jan-6-committee-hearing-will-focus-on-the-role-of-qanon-and-extremists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Alexander
https://www.justsecurity.org/91904/dissecting-trumps-peacefully-and-patriotically-defense-of-the-january-6th-attack/
https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/post/christian-nationalism-and-threats-of-violence-at-pro-trump-rally-on-eve-of-electoral-college-certification
https://lailluminator.com/2022/08/29/qa-with-ali-alexander-organizer-of-stop-the-steal-protests-before-jan-6/
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/html-submitted/ch6.html#:~:text=FOR%20JANUARY%206TH-,THE%20%E2%80%9CSTOP%20THE%20STEAL%E2%80%9D%20COALITION,-President%20Trump%E2%80%99s%20%E2%80%9Cbe
https://abcnews.go.com/US/funding-stop-steal-movement-shrouded-mystery-due-lack/story?id=76052632
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-fbi-finds-scant-evidence-us-capitol-attack-was-coordinated-sources-2021-08-20/
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/06/politics/january-6-rioters-justice/index.html
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/html-submitted/ch6.html
https://academic.oup.com/book/45702/chapter-abstract/398114080?redirectedFrom=fulltext