\n\n“In early 2021, Richer was an Arizona Republican official who regularly attended local party events. At the time, he was the newly elected county recorder of Maricopa County. The job was a new level of prominence \u2014 he was now the most important election supervisory official in the state\u2019s largest county \u2014 but going to Arizona Republican events was routine: the kind of thing that Richer, like any state politician, had done hundreds of times before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But at one event, the crowd heckled and harassed him. When he tried to leave, they dragged him back in, yanking on his arms and shoulders, to berate him about the allegedly stolen 2020 election<\/a>. He started to worry: Would his own people, fellow Republican Party members, seriously hurt him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a clear reason for the madness. Many of the Republican faithful had recently decided that Maricopa County had been the epicenter of \u201cthe steal,\u201d Joe Biden<\/a>\u2019s theft of Arizona from Donald Trump<\/a> \u2014 and the entire presidential election with it. This wasn\u2019t true, obviously. Richer tried to tell them it wasn\u2019t true, hoping his long track record in the state Republican party would give him some credibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It did not. What happened instead reveals a pattern that is quietly reshaping American politics: Across the board and around the country, data reveals that threats against public officials have risen to unprecedented numbers \u2014 to the point where 83 percent of Americans<\/a> are now concerned about risks of political violence in their country. The threats are coming from across the political spectrum, but the most important ones in this regard emanate from the MAGA faithful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s most fanatical followers have created a situation where challenging him carries not only political risks but also personal ones. Elected officials who dare defy the former president face serious threats to their well-being and to that of their families \u2014 raising the cost of taking an already difficult stand.” …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It\u2019s been well over two years since Richer attended the kinds of Arizona GOP grassroots events where he was once welcome. Today, the institutional Arizona Republican party is dominated by politicians who have embraced Trump\u2019s lies about the election \u2014 people like Kari Lake, Blake Masters, and Mark Finchem. The harassment and threats from the MAGA faithful was one weapon in the extremist takeover\u2019s arsenal, working to push voices of sanity out of key party events \u2014 breaking even determined ones like Richer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Arizona, the Trumpist threat of violence worked<\/em>. And it worked for reasons that should worry all of us at the beginning of an election year that could decide the fate of American democracy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “In 2016, the Capitol Police recorded fewer than 900 threats<\/a> against members of Congress. In 2017, that figure more than quadrupled, per data provided by the Capitol Police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The numbers continued to increase in every year of the Trump presidency, peaking at 9,700 in 2021. In 2022, the first full year of Biden\u2019s term, the numbers went down to a still-high 7,500. The 2023 data has not yet been released, but a spike in threats against legislators during the House Republican speaker fight<\/a> and Israel-Hamas conflict<\/a> suggests an increase over the 2022 numbers is plausible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Members of Congress are taking these threats seriously. In September, three journalists at the Washington Post reviewed FEC filings to assess how much candidates for the House and Senate were spending on security. They found an overall increase of 500 percent between 2020 and 2022<\/a>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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