Trump Rallies Were a Preview of the Capitol Attack

That wasn’t paranoia. Nearly every Trump rally invariably has an undercurrent of menace fed by the candidate. Two years ago in El Paso, Texas, a man in a red MAGA hat “violently pushed and shoved” a BBC cameraperson who was covering the rally from the press section. As a protester was led out of his rally in Las Vegas during the ’16 campaign, Trump told the crowd that the guards were too “gentle” and that he would have liked to “punch him in the face.”

How do these things happen? When the MAGA movement leader employs martial rhetoric to describe even the mundane rituals of American politics—warning that he’s the victim of a “coup,” fearmongering about treasonous rivals and disloyal staff and “fake news”—it’s not all that surprising that his aggrieved base seeks vengeance.