The Republican Party Is A Domestic Terrorist Organization
September 1st, 2025 · Greyson TigheThe Republican Party is not behaving like a normal political party. Under the control of Donald Trump, it has adopted practices that align with the elements of domestic terrorism as defined by federal law: violent or dangerous acts intended to intimidate a civilian population and to influence government policy, occurring inside the United States. [1]Federal definition of domestic terrorism: 18 U.S.C. § 2331(5). When party leadership shields, rewards, and glorifies such acts when they serve its interests, it stops acting as a democratic party and begins to operate in practice like a domestic terrorism organization.
This is not hyperbole. The Department of Homeland Security's most recent Homeland Threat Assessment warns that violence from U.S.-based violent extremists remains a leading and persistent threat, with anti-government and racially motivated actors driving significant risk to officials and communities. [2]DHS, Homeland Threat Assessment 2025. See overview page and PDF.[3]DHS Homeland Threat Assessment 2025 PDF. That is the government's baseline assessment, not a partisan talking point.
January 6 was the moment when the political utility of violence became undeniable. By early 2025, federal tallies reported roughly 1,583 defendants charged in connection with the attack, including about 608 for assaulting, resisting, or interfering with police, with 174 accused of using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious injury. [4]ABC News, Jan. 6, 2025: "Where the Jan. 6 Capitol attack investigation stands, by the numbers." Sourced to DOJ. These are arrests, indictments, and convictions arising from a mob summoned to stop the lawful transfer of power.
Rather than treat this as a red line never to be crossed, Republican leadership reframed the attack as acceptable politics. On February 4, 2022, the Republican National Committee officially described the events surrounding January 6 as "legitimate political discourse" while censuring Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for investigating it. [5]Axios: RNC censures Cheney and Kinzinger; "legitimate political discourse" language.[6]The Guardian coverage of the RNC resolution and the phrase "legitimate political discourse." Senior Republicans publicly objected to the phrase—which shows they understood its meaning—yet the resolution stood as the party's statement of record. [7]Axios: Pence later defended elements of the resolution as "misunderstood," showing the intra-party fight over the phrasing.
That rhetorical permission was reinforced by action. On Trump's first day back in office, January 20, 2025, the White House issued a proclamation granting broad clemency for January 6 offenses. [8]White House proclamation, Jan. 20, 2025, granting pardons and commutations for certain Jan. 6 offenses. The Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney implemented the directive and set up certificate issuance for those covered. [9]U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Pardon Attorney: "About the President's clemency action" for Jan. 6. Reporting indicated the scope covered well over 1,000 defendants, including individuals convicted of assaulting police. A party whose leader removes legal consequences for political violence aligned with his aims is not deterring terrorism. It is cultivating it. [10]Reuters, Jan. 21, 2025: experts say the pardons will embolden Proud Boys and other far-right groups.
The messaging matched the policy. Throughout 2023 and 2024, Trump called the rioters "hostages" and promised to free them as a first act if reelected, a promise he then fulfilled. [11]Reuters: "Trump calls people imprisoned for U.S. Capitol attack hostages," Nov. 3, 2023.[12]CBS News, Mar. 12, 2024: Trump says one of his first acts will be to "free the January 6 hostages." Judges and even some Republicans rejected the "hostages" label, but the purpose of the rhetoric was to signal that violence in service of Trump's power would be blessed by the movement. [13]Reuters, Jan. 8, 2024: White House calls "hostages" label grotesque; broader pushback documented.
Around the party, a broader permission structure flourished. House Republicans staged a high-profile jail visit to show solidarity with January 6 detainees, turning alleged insurrectionists into movement martyrs. [14]ABC News: House Republicans toured the D.C. jail where Jan. 6 defendants were held, Mar. 24, 2023. Movement elites escalated conditional threat language. The president of the Heritage Foundation, a central node in the Project 2025 orbit, said we are in a second American Revolution that will remain bloodless "if the left allows it to be." [15]Associated Press, July 3, 2024: Kevin Roberts "second American Revolution" quote with "if the left allows it to be" language. That is not civic rhetoric. It is a warning that resistance will be blamed for any blood that follows.
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Since 2025, even official U.S. government social media feeds have dabbled in extremist aesthetics and dog whistles. In late July, the Department of Homeland Security's main X account posted a "foreign invaders" graphic and other imagery that experts said echoed white-nationalist tropes, part of a broader stream of posts that critics described as propagandistic rather than informational. [16]Washington Post: DHS's official accounts pushed inflammatory "Americana" content and misleading claims (July 29, 2025). Art publications noted the same aesthetic turn. Artnet News reported that DHS even shared a Thomas Kinkade painting on Instagram alongside a "Protect the Homeland" message—kitschy Americana drafted into a law-and-order narrative that mirrors far-right visual propaganda techniques. [17]Artnet News: "Of All Things, U.S. Homeland Security Just Shared a Thomas Kinkade Painting" (July 31, 2025).
More overtly, DHS drew condemnation after posting a 1936 political cartoon with the caption "Which way, American man?" —a direct riff on the far-right meme "Which way, Western man?" that circulates in white-supremacist spaces. Jewish and Israeli media covered the outcry and the meme's extremist lineage. [18]Jerusalem Post: DHS accused of tweeting antisemitic dog whistles; "Which way, American man?" post (Aug. 5, 2025).
What emerges from these signals is something more profound than a few offensive posts. Under Trump's second regime, federal agencies themselves have become vehicles for Groyper-style propaganda. The Groypers, once a fringe cadre of white nationalist youth orbiting livestreamer Nick Fuentes, built their identity around "ironic" antisemitism, Christian nationalism, and meme aesthetics designed to launder extremist politics into mainstream conservatism. Their signature frog mascot and their tactic of ambushing conservative events in the late 2010s were dismissed as fringe at the time. Today, their imagery, language, and narratives appear on official government channels, draped in the respectability of federal seals.
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🛒 Shop NowThat is why critics describe the United States in 2025 as a Groyper Occupied Government. It does not mean Nick Fuentes holds office. It means the ideas that Groypers mainstreamed—xenophobia framed as "defending heritage," Christian nationalist codes embedded in official slogans, antisemitic dog whistles repackaged as Americana—are now echoed and broadcast by the very agencies meant to safeguard democracy. When DHS posts a caption counted in "14 words" or repurposes a white supremacist slogan as recruitment material, it signals that what was once extremist subculture has migrated into the machinery of the state.
The Groypers' project was always to colonize the right from within. They bragged that their movement was the true future of MAGA. Trump's second regime has delivered them that victory in practice, not by appointing Fuentes, but by adopting the language, style, and enemy-making logic that Groypers pioneered. It is governance by meme war, where white nationalist aesthetics are fed through official channels, and where stochastic terrorism aimed at LGBTQ people, immigrants, and Jews is normalized as politics. To call this merely "conservative” misses the mark. It is a government operating under Groyper codes, with the full weight of the state amplifying what was once fringe.
Defenders protest that there is no domestic terrorism list that could formally designate the Republican Party. That is true as a procedural matter and irrelevant to the substance. The United States lacks a mechanism to designate domestic groups in the way it designates foreign terrorist organizations, but the law still defines the conduct. [19]Domestic terrorism definition detail: 18 U.S.C. § 2331(5) reference page. We can measure the party's choices against that definition and against the government's own threat assessments. When a party reframes an attack on the peaceful transfer of power as legitimate discourse, when its leader pardons the perpetrators at scale and calls them hostages, and when allied institutions speak in contingency terms about whether resistance will make the revolution bloody, the pattern is unmistakable. The party is using and rewarding coercive violence to achieve political ends. That satisfies the elements the law sets out, even if no registry exists to stamp it.
A democratic party persuades, bargains, and accepts lawful losses. A domestic terrorism organization builds a culture where violence and the promise of impunity become tools of governance. Under Trump's control, the GOP chose the latter. The result is a standing invitation to the next attack, issued from the top of a party that still expects to rule the nation it is willing to harm.
Consider how concrete cases fit the statute. In 2020, a cell of anti-government militants plotted to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, scouted her home, practiced with explosives, and discussed execution. Federal juries convicted ringleaders Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr., and judges imposed sentences of 16 years and more than 19 years. The point of the plot was to coerce state policy by force, which is the definition's core. [20]DOJ: Adam Fox sentenced to 16 years, Dec. 27, 2022.[21]DOJ: Barry Croft Jr. sentenced to more than 19 years, Dec. 28, 2022.
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🛒 Shop NowThe same pattern of violence has surfaced wherever democratic officials stand in the way of right-wing power. In April 2020, armed protesters stormed the Michigan State Capitol over COVID restrictions, occupying the galleries with rifles to intimidate lawmakers. Many were later linked to the cell that plotted to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer. [22]NPR: Armed protesters enter Michigan Capitol, April 30, 2020.[23]DOJ: Two men sentenced for the Whitmer kidnap plot, Dec. 2022. This was not protest. It was armed coercion aimed at changing policy through fear.
After the 2022 midterms, a Republican state house candidate in New Mexico, Solomon Peña, responded to his loss by orchestrating drive-by shootings at the homes and offices of Democratic officials and then plotting to have witnesses murdered. A federal jury convicted him on 13 counts in March 2025, and a judge sentenced him to 80 years in August 2025. Violence to intimidate public officials into changing election outcomes is not protest. It is terror. [24]DOJ: Former New Mexico House candidate convicted for a politically motivated shooting spree, Mar. 20, 2025.[25]DOJ: Peña sentenced to 960 months for orchestrating shootings and murder-for-hire plot, Aug. 13, 2025.
Election workers have been terrorized as well. In Georgia, Trump and Rudy Giuliani's false fraud claims unleashed racist harassment and death threats against Fulton County staff Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. They were forced into hiding and later won a $148 million judgment against Giuliani in 2023 for defamation that endangered their lives. [26]Reuters: Jury orders Giuliani to pay $148M to Georgia election workers, Dec. 15, 2023.[27]CNN: Freeman & Moss verdict coverage, Dec. 2023. The goal was not speech. It was to drive ordinary officials from their duties through intimidation.
Look as well at the organized formations that marched with and for the party. Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and Florida leader Kelly Meggs were convicted of seditious conspiracy and received long sentences. Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio received 22 years for the same conspiracy. Then the party's leader rewarded that violence. On January 20, 2025, the White House issued mass clemency that included commuting the sentences of Rhodes, Tarrio, and other leaders to time served, alongside sweeping pardons. [28]DOJ: Oath Keepers leaders sentenced for seditious conspiracy, May 25, 2023.[29]DOJ: Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio sentenced to 22 years, Sept. 5, 2023.[30]Text of Proclamation 10887, Jan. 2025.[31]Federal Register publication of Proclamation 10887, Jan. 29, 2025.
Political terror has also targeted top officials and their families. In 2022, David DePape broke into the Pelosi home intending to kidnap the Speaker and fractured Paul Pelosi's skull with a hammer. A federal jury convicted him of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on an immediate family member of a federal official, and a judge imposed a 30-year sentence. The motive was to coerce the conduct of government through violence. [32]DOJ: DePape convicted of assault and attempted kidnapping, Nov. 17, 2023; sentenced to 30 years, May 17, 2024.[33]DOJ: Sentencing press release, 30-year sentence for DePape, May 17, 2024.
The movement's ecosystem has produced ideologically motivated murders aimed at communities treated as political enemies. In El Paso, a shooter who described himself as a white nationalist murdered 23 shoppers at a Walmart and received 90 consecutive life sentences after pleading guilty to federal hate crimes. In Pittsburgh, a federal jury recommended death for the gunman who murdered 11 worshipers at Tree of Life synagogue. In Jacksonville, the Justice Department opened a hate-crime and racially motivated violent extremism investigation after a gunman murdered three Black victims at a Dollar General. These are acts intended to terrorize a civilian population for political ends. [34]DOJ: El Paso shooter sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms, July 7, 2023.[35]DOJ: Jury recommends death sentence for Tree of Life shooter, Aug. 2, 2023.[36]DOJ: Attorney General statement on Jacksonville shooting, Aug. 27, 2023.
In Buffalo, a white supremacist murdered 10 Black shoppers at a Tops supermarket after posting a manifesto citing the "Great Replacement" conspiracy—the same narrative amplified by prominent right-wing media figures and GOP politicians. He pleaded guilty to state charges including domestic terrorism motivated by hate and was sentenced to life without parole; federal prosecutors later moved to seek the death penalty on federal hate-crime counts. [37]DOJ: Federal grand jury indicts Tops shooter on hate crimes and firearms charges, July 14, 2022.[38]Axios: Buffalo shooter sentenced to life without parole on state charges, Feb. 15, 2023.[39]ABC News: DOJ to seek federal death penalty against Buffalo shooter, Jan. 12, 2024.
There is also the modern pipeline that moves from mass-audience demonization to individually unpredictable attacks. Scholars call this stochastic terrorism. The pattern appears when leaders and media figures flood the zone with vilification that predictably yields violent action by ideologically aligned actors even though the next attacker cannot be specifically predicted. Legal scholars and public-law researchers have mapped how this dynamic skirts incitement doctrine while producing real-world violence. [40]Drexel Law Review, 2024: discussion of stochastic terrorism and incitement doctrine.[41]Max Planck Institute project overview, defining stochastic terrorism as the use of mass media to provoke statistically predictable but individually unpredictable violence.
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Once you see the pipeline, you see its outputs. The Justice Department's Election Threats Task Force now posts a steady drumbeat of prosecutions for threats and attacks against election workers. Surveys show large shares of local officials reporting threats and harassment since 2020. On the ground, the climate included armed drop-box watchers in Arizona whom a federal judge ordered to keep their distance and stop intimidating voters. Each episode is the translation of permission structures into action. [42]DOJ: Election Threats Task Force hub and recent cases.[43]Brennan Center, Local Election Officials Survey, May 2024.[44]AP: Judge orders armed group away from Arizona ballot drop boxes, Nov. 1, 2022.
The pipeline is clearest in the social-media personalities who convert outrage into threats. The account Libs of TikTok, run by Chaya Raichik, repeatedly posted false or inflammatory claims about hospitals and schools and then the targets were flooded with threats, including bomb threats. In August 2022, Boston Children's Hospital reported a torrent of threats after Libs of TikTok posted about its gender-affirming care; on August 30 the hospital received a bomb threat, and a Massachusetts woman later pleaded guilty and, in July 2024, was sentenced for calling in that hoax threat. [45]Washington Post: Boston Children's says it faced threats after conservative influencers' posts (Aug. 18, 2022).[46]Washington Post: Children's National and Boston Children's inundated with threats; social posts suggested bombing (Sept. 2, 2022).[47]AP: Woman pleads guilty in Boston Children's hoax bomb threat case (Dec. 2023 update; sentencing set for 2024).[48]DOJ, U.S. Attorney (D. Mass.): Westfield woman sentenced for hoax bomb threat against Boston Children's (July 22, 2024). Washington's Children's National Hospital saw the same pattern after a Libs of TikTok recording; staff received threats and online posts called for the facility to be bombed. [49]Washington Post: Children's National inundated with threatening calls and emails after a Libs of TikTok recording; social media posts suggested the hospital be bombed (Aug. 27, 2022).
By 2024 the same dynamic had migrated into K–12. In Waukesha, Wisconsin, Butler Middle School was hit with a series of bomb-threat calls in mid-March days after Libs of TikTok targeted a school administrator; police and district leaders publicly linked the timeline to the account's post even as they assessed the calls as hoaxes designed to terrorize and disrupt. [50]Wisconsin Public Radio: After Libs of TikTok post, multiple bomb threats at Waukesha middle school (Mar. 18, 2024).[51]Wisconsin Watch: Waukesha middle school receives bomb threats after Libs of TikTok post (Mar. 19, 2024).[52]FOX6 Milwaukee: Police confirm four threats in the past week at Butler Middle School (Mar. 19, 2024). In North Texas, a Northwest ISD teacher became the subject of Libs of TikTok posts; within days, hoax bomb threats targeted her campus and home, prompting FBI involvement and district security changes. [53]KERA: Northwest ISD teacher targeted by hoax bomb threats after Libs of TikTok posts (Mar. 18, 2024).[54]WFAA (ABC Dallas): District tightens security following hoax bomb threats; fallout after online harassment (Mar. 27, 2024).[55]Fort Worth Report: Northwest ISD approves resolution supporting teachers facing harassment (Apr. 16, 2024).
This is how stochastic terrorism operates in practice: a large audience is primed with vilification; named targets are flooded with threats and hoaxes that force evacuations, police deployments, and lockdowns; the perpetrators are often remote or anonymous, but the probability of harm rises predictably. Major outlets, researchers, and even congressional records have documented the linkage between these posts and subsequent bomb threats and harassment, from hospitals to school districts. [56]Washington Post technology coverage summarizing the pattern linking Libs of TikTok content to hospital threats and a bomb threat (Sept. 2, 2022).[57]U.S. House Energy & Commerce and Education & Workforce hearing records summarizing threats to children's hospitals after online misinformation (2023).[58]Washington Post follow-up on escalating threats to providers in 2025 amid anti-trans orders and activist campaigns.
The same pipeline has repeatedly hit libraries and Pride events. In Massachusetts, officials evacuated the Reading Public Library after an emailed bomb threat targeted a Pride Storytime with Drag Friends; the library said it was an attempt to disrupt the event and terrorize the community. [59]Boston.com: Reading Public Library receives bomb threat just before Pride Storytime (Mar. 24, 2024). In Pennsylvania, a Drag Queen Story Hour in Lancaster was canceled after threats, evacuations, and a suspicious-package response that spread to neighboring buildings. [60]WITF public radio: Lancaster Drag Queen Story Hour canceled after threats and evacuations (Mar. 25, 2024).[61]PinkNews: Pennsylvania library evacuated after bomb threats before Drag Queen Story Hour (Mar. 24, 2024). In Alaska, families were evacuated from Seward's library minutes before Pride Month story hour began; the reading continued at another venue under police supervision. [62]Alaska Public Media: Drag Story Hour carries on in Seward despite bomb threat and evacuation (June 10, 2024). In California's Bay Area, a South Bay bookstore canceled Drag Queen Storytime after a bomb threat [63]ABC7 Bay Area: Bomb threat at South Bay bookstore cancels Drag Queen Storytime (June 28, 2024)., and in Somerville, Massachusetts, a public library canceled a drag story event after an emailed bomb threat. [64]Harvard Crimson: Somerville Public Library cancels drag story event after bomb threat (Oct. 8, 2024).
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🛒 Shop NowAfter Libs of TikTok and allied outlets launched a campaign against Planet Fitness's trans-inclusive locker-room policy in March–April 2024, locations across the country were hit by waves of hoax bomb threats. Media Matters counted at least 53 locations; The Washington Post reported at least 54; The Guardian tallied more than 40. Each threat forced evacuations, police sweeps, and closures. [65]Media Matters: "Bomb threats follow Libs of TikTok's campaign against Planet Fitness" (Apr. 5, 2024).[66]Washington Post: "How an inclusive gym brand became a battlefield" — at least 54 threats after attacks by Chaya Raichik (Apr. 28, 2024).[67]The Guardian: "Planet Fitness outlets receive bomb threats after far right derides gym policy" (Apr. 13, 2024).[68]LGBTQ Nation roundup: threats at 17+ locations in the first wave (Apr. 5, 2024).
Law enforcement treated Pride season as a target environment requiring proactive warnings. FBI field offices urged heightened vigilance and reporting throughout June 2024, and federal guidance emphasized bomb-threat management for community venues. [69]FBI Detroit Field Office: "Safety resources during Pride Month" (May 30, 2024).[70]FBI Phoenix Field Office: "FBI urges safety and security during Pride Month" (June 7, 2024).[71]CISA: Bomb Threat Guide for venues (continuously maintained).[72]CISA PDF: "Increase in Bomb Threats and Suspicious Packages" (Sept. 2024). The point of these alerts is not that every threat is credible. It is that the threat-and-evacuation cycle is now predictable, costly, and coercive.
This is the operational logic of stochastic terrorism in the Trump-aligned ecosystem. A high-follower account spotlights a target and floods it with vilifying claims. Within hours or days, the target's phones and inboxes fill with threats, including bomb threats that force evacuations and bring police and bomb squads to libraries, schools, Pride venues, and gyms. The perpetrators are disparate and often anonymous, but the violence is statistically predictable even if no single attack is. Federal agencies now publish guidance assuming these threats will materialize; communities have learned to plan for the lockdowns. The result is not debate. It is compelled behavior through fear, coordinated by narrative and rewarded by applause and attention. [73]Washington Post technology coverage tying the Planet Fitness threats and other waves to online campaigns led by Chaya Raichik (Apr. 28, 2024).[74]CISA Bomb Threat Guide; FBI Pride advisories; repeated venue evacuations documented across 2024.
Federal law enforcement itself has been targeted after being cast as enemies of Trump. In August 2022, an armed man tried to breach the FBI's Cincinnati office with an AR-15 and nail gun after the search of Mar-a-Lago, firing at officers before being killed in a standoff. [75]Reuters: Armed man attempts breach of FBI Cincinnati, Aug. 11, 2022.[76]AP: Gunman killed after trying to storm FBI office, Aug. 11, 2022. The same year, the Treasury Inspector General reported a surge of threats against IRS staff after Republican leaders falsely warned of "87,000 armed agents." [77]Treasury Inspector General report noting increased threats against IRS staff, 2022. Political violence now extends to the government's own protectors when they enforce the law against Trump.
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