Tucker Carlson’s eyes narrowed as he conjured the picture. A Donald Trump victory, he mentioned at a marketing campaign occasion in Gwinnett County, Georgia, final night time, “can be a center finger wagging within the face of the worst folks within the English-speaking world.”
Trump maintains that he’s operating for president a 3rd time to revive and unite the nation. However many Democrats and even some Republicans have expressed profound concern for democracy and total security if the previous president wins this election. Final night time on the Gwinnett County occasion, sponsored by Charlie Kirk’s Turning Level Motion, I requested Trump’s supporters to contemplate the inverse: What do you assume will occur if Trump loses?
The extra Trump rallies I attended, the extra this query had been gnawing at me. He has framed this presidential contest as a “last battle,” and he might properly win. But when he doesn’t, I wished to know if he and his supporters would actually go quietly. I heard a spread of solutions final night time, from guarantees to just accept the result to predictions of a brand new Civil Battle.
I approached the previous Trump-administration official Peter Navarro, who was signing copies of his guide The New MAGA Deal: The Unofficial Deplorables Information to Donald Trump’s 2024 Coverage Platform. Earlier this 12 months, Navarro spent 4 months in jail. Like one other Trump ally, Steve Bannon, Navarro had been present in contempt of Congress after failing to adjust to subpoenas from the Home Choose Committee on January 6. If Trump loses the election, Navarro informed me that “the nation will disintegrate,” and he warned of “very exhausting occasions.” I requested him if he thought one thing akin to a different January 6 would possibly happen. “By asking that query you’re attempting to fire up shit, man,” he mentioned. He informed me that my question can be higher suited to President Joe Biden and the Democrats. “These assholes put me in jail,” he mentioned. “Do you hear me?”
One other former Trump-administration official, Ben Carson, took a extra conciliatory method to my query. “I believe we’ll should regroup and take a look at to determine how we are able to save our nation,” Carson mentioned. He informed me he doubted that one other occasion just like the storming of the Capitol would happen. “I believe no matter who wins or loses, we’ve received to tone down the dissension and the hatred that’s occurring in our nation, or it’s going to be destroyed,” Carson mentioned.
Rank-and-file Trump supporters had various opinions on the matter. I chatted with one attendee, Joshua Barnes, whereas he waited in line to purchase strawberry smoothies for himself and his spouse at a meals truck outdoors the sector. The couple had pushed 4 hours that morning from their house in Alabama to listen to Trump converse reside for the primary time. “If she does turn out to be president, as a lot as I might hate it, you sort of do have to just accept it,” Barnes mentioned, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris. He informed me he didn’t need one other riot to happen, however he acknowledged the opportunity of one thing worse: a interval of postelection unrest, and even civil conflict. (He pointed me to a Rasmussen survey from the spring that had proven a distressingly excessive share of respondents saying the identical factor.)
A person from Gwinnett County named Wealthy who works in building informed me that this was his fourth Trump rally. “I’m a fairly good decide of character, and when individuals are attempting to shovel me a load of rubbish, it’s like, No, it stinks, okay?” he mentioned of Harris and the Democrats. He predicted protests irrespective of who loses, however didn’t anticipate one other January 6, which he known as a “scenario” and never an riot. As for one thing nearer to a civil conflict? “I believe something’s doable; I don’t assume it’s out of the query, and I actually can’t elaborate on that,” he mentioned, including solely that he hoped it wouldn’t occur.
Within the car parking zone, I met a person named Mark Williams, who informed me he ran the most important political printing enterprise in Georgia. I took a seat in a folding chair behind his desk of yard indicators and different wares, and he provided me a red-white-and-blue can of Conservative Dad’s Extremely Proper 100% Woke-Free American Beer. (“Eat steak, elevate weights, be uncensorable, drink slightly beer,” learn the slogan.) Although Williams helps Trump, he was levelheaded about each the present election and the earlier one. He didn’t imagine Trump’s declare that he’d actually received in 2020. “I believe we’re extra accepting than the media provides us credit score for,” Williams mentioned of he and his fellow Republicans. “The actions of some get painted with that huge brush,” he mentioned, pointing to January 6. “So, yeah, there’s going to be some loopy folks that do some loopy shit; that simply occurs. However the actions of most of us, I imply, we’ll bitch about it and scream at one another and all that sort of stuff, however we’re not going to interrupt into the Capitol and stuff. I’m as huge a Trump supporter as anyone, however I didn’t really feel compelled to go breaking into the Capitol. And people folks that did that did fallacious. And I don’t know that every one of them did fallacious, however the ones that did, they wanted to be punished.”
Williams informed me he had by no means thought-about a brand new civil conflict significantly till he attended Child Rock’s Rock the Nation pageant in Rome, Georgia, earlier this 12 months. He described among the chatter he heard on the pageant, akin to When we have now to exit on the sphere and battle these folks, y’all going to be there with us? “It did shock me slightly bit, the tone that a few of these guys have been taking; I believe there’s folks which are completely able to tackle a civil conflict,” he mentioned. “I believe that if there was an awesome view of a crooked election or one thing like that—yeah, I might see it taking place.”
Lots of the Trump supporters I interviewed sounded nervous about future political violence. Some recognized as pacifists. Others believed that unrest was virtually a given. A 23-year-old named Ben informed me he had skipped his lessons on the College of Georgia to attend yesterday’s rally. I requested him if he thought January 6 might occur once more within the occasion of a Trump defeat. “Sure,” he mentioned. “I believe it’ll be actual this time.” He informed me that he wasn’t certain what he, personally, would do if Trump misplaced. “I wouldn’t need to act on intuition, however I might be indignant,” he mentioned. He volunteered that he believed that Church and state wanted to be remarried. “If Trump was dictator, I might assist him,” he mentioned. He insisted that he wasn’t trolling me.
When Trump addressed the gang, he made no secret of his authoritarian aspirations. He raised the opportunity of suing 60 Minutes over its modifying of an interview with Harris, and made the baffling declare that gang members have been taking on Instances Sq. with weapons that the U.S. navy doesn’t have. (“However we have now guys that need to confront them, they usually’re gonna be allowed to confront them, and we’re gonna get ’em the hell out of right here.”) As soon as once more, he promised to hold out the biggest deportation operation in historical past. He additionally mentioned he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which might grant him authority to detain, relocate, or deport foreigners deemed an enemy, and referred to as for the loss of life penalty for any migrant who kills an American citizen.
That final level is a very charged subject in Georgia. A 63-year-old attendee I met named Linda informed me her daughters had been in the identical sorority as Laken Riley, the 22-year-old pupil who was murdered earlier this 12 months whereas jogging. Riley’s alleged assailant is a person from Venezuela who entered the U.S. illegally, and her loss of life has turn out to be a conservative rallying cry, particularly for Trump, because it was once more final night time. (“I really feel like we’ll be extra like Venezuela if the Democrats get in there,” Linda informed me.)
After dropping Georgia in 2020, Trump tried to overturn the state’s election outcomes. Within the 4 years since, he’s solely grown extra unstable, and he’s predicated his 2024 marketing campaign on retribution. This time round, Trump has been encouraging his supporters to vote early, and he’s pushing a brand new catchphrase: “Too huge to rig.” He’s not desirous about what occurs if he loses; he desires a landslide victory.
