An FBI “red cell” report predicted that law enforcement action and a “lack of coordination” between groups would prevent widespread violence in response to a disputed election.
One week before Election Day 2020 and just over two months before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, an internal FBI analysis concluded that domestic violent extremists were “very willing to take action” in response to a disputed election but that “law enforcement preemption” and the “disorganization” of extremist groups “likely would hinder widespread violence.”
The so-called red cell report — the type of exercise that became widespread after the federal government’s Sept. 11 intelligence failures and are meant to challenge conventional wisdom and encourage outside-the-box thinking — was titled “Alternative Analysis: Potential Scenarios for Reactions of Domestic Violent Extremists to a Disputed 2020 US Presidential Election.” NBC News obtained a redacted copy of the report through a Freedom of Information Act request.
It’s definitely one of the biggest immediate threats, but it is a symptom. Corporations buying out our politicians and generally being less democratic led to this.
For reference, FDR got elected 4 times. He wasn’t elected a 5th tine because he died in office. Republicans had to invent term limits for the presidency and came up with McCarthyism (the red scare) to force the country and political discourse back to the right. Now it’s just so far right that it devolved into straight fascism.
A good chunk of the American people are latching onto any politician that claims to have a solution to their economic problems, even if they are brazzenly lying about what they actually believe. Trump was in office 4 years, tanked the economy in the process, gave a massive bailout to corpos, and tried to overthrow democracy, and his supporters still believe his bullshit.