Domestic Terrorism Threats Grow As Election Draws To a Close
As former president Donald Trump’s rhetoric grows increasingly hostile, so does the threat of terrorism
In early October, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued its 2025 Homeland Threat Assessment (HTA) indicating the growing likelihood of election-related domestic terrorism. As rumors of the former president’s campaign allegedly declaring that it knows Donald Trump will lose, the rhetoric from him and many other Republicans has only grown more hostile.
With that hostility, the chances of domestic terrorist attacks grow as well.
The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) compared online rhetoric between 2020 and today. The organization highlights that “the same warning signs of political violence based on election denialism combined with violent language across fringe platforms that we saw in the weeks before the 2020 election and before the January 6, 2021, insurrection” are as prevalent as they were four years ago. A warning that should not be ignored.
Hateful language across multiple platforms has exploded over the last week with a marked increase in violent rhetoric from various groups. Much of that language is based on election denialism that echoes the language of the former president, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and many others. It’s language that suggests far-right actors will not accept the results of the election should Trump lose as many are expecting him to.
“We've got to make it too big to rig," Johnson said on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan on Oct. 13, 2024. He added that most states have done "great work" to "shore up their systems and to make sure that we have a free and fair election." But that great work, as many now know, is based on suppressing the nonwhite vote by introducing more than 400 anti-voter bills across 48 states, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
That same “too big to rig” language is being echoed by those expressing the most violent language on various social media sites. The language suggests that the election is already rigged against Donald Trump and conservatives who harbor racist and bigoted ideologies making them the biggest threat to the nation over any foreign adversaries.
A video on TikTok suggesting that undocumented noncitizen Haitians are buying guns en masse is also circulating on various far-right channels leading to calls for the murder of Haitians in Ohio and elsewhere by a member of the Texas chapter of the Proud Boys. What the woman in the video claims is false. Any gun owner (myself included) knows that purchasing a firearm doesn’t work the way she suggests it does.
My family and I will be keeping an eye on those with Trump signs in our neighborhood and anywhere within our proximity. Because no matter how cool our neighbors may or may not have been in the past, there is no way a multi-racial and multi-cultural family like ours can let our guard down. These are trying times and our vigilance might be all we have after this election.
Please stay safe.
I’m a freelance journalist. Find my work at Latino Rebels, Unicorn Riot, The Antagonist Magazine, and more. I’m also on TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Threads. To support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber or donate on Venmo, PayPal, or CashApp