Trump critics hit with death threat "surge." Some are pushing back defiantly.

Nearly two dozen elected officials on both sides of the aisle received violent threats after being attack by Trump, according to NBC News

“Bad things are going to happen to him!” I’ll never forget Trump bellowing those words about me at a campaign rally. Within days, it became true — the death threats rolled in — almost like that’s how he wanted it to happen. And in the past few weeks, we’ve seen it happen to dozens of American officials who’ve crossed Trump.

Before I get to that, I’ll note that my personal experience with Trump-inspired death threats is going on more than a half decade.

I quit his administration in 2019, later unmasked myself as “Anonymous,” and — in the lead-up to the 2020 election — rallied the largest group of ex-officials in American history to oppose a president under whom they’d served. Trump was beyond furious. He didn’t want all of that free speech to be “free,” so he blew his dog whistle to sic his supporters on me. They complied. The threats were instantaneous, graphic, and came from everywhere. I was doxxed, harassed, stalked, and accosted in public.

That’s partly why I was forced to spend the 2020 election period under armed guard in a safe house in Northern Virginia. Five years later, I’ve almost gotten used to it. Almost. Every time the president attacks me, he does it with a big “wink” to his supporters, knowing they’ll threaten me and my family. It happened again this April.

“I think he’s guilty of treason, if you want to know the truth,” the president said in front of cameras in the Oval Office.

Predictably, the threats ramped up. Text messages. DMs. Phone calls. “We have a firing squad for treason,” one online troll wrote. “I’m looking forward to your public execution,” said another. Some sent GIFs of people being hanged. I won’t write about the worst threats because they remain under investigation — or are subject to ongoing legal proceedings.

When you get doxxed, it can be terrifying, especially for your loved ones. The attackers begin reaching you directly on your phone or at your home. Receiving so many direct and menacing messages would put anyone on edge. Here’s just a sample of the ones I got the last time it happened to me, which led to me having to change my phone number for a third time:

Which brings me to today’s story.

NBC News reports that, in just the past few weeks, almost two dozen federal, state, and local officials have received a “surge” of violent threats for similar reasons — they said said (or did) something Trump didn’t like, and he attacked them. Then the crowd-sourced harassment began:

President Donald Trump’s heated rhetoric against his perceived political enemies has resulted in a blizzard of threats against at least 22 officials on both sides of the aisle in recent weeks, according to an NBC News tally.

Among those who’ve been targeted with threats after being mentioned in social media posts by the president are numerous Democrats, including Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan — but even more Republicans, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and over a dozen Indiana state lawmakers.

Three of the members of Congress that Trump accused of sedition, meanwhile, have filed complaints against him with the U.S. Capitol Police. The Capitol Police declined to comment on the complaints, saying in a statement, “For safety reasons, we cannot discuss any potential investigations.”

Democrats and Republicans can point fingers about who is “responsible” for the overall surge in political violence, but there is no denying that the leader of the Republican Party — who also happens to be the leader of the free world — is completely peerless when it comes to instigating violence. Know president in the modern era has done his. But he relishes it. He knows it’s a tool of intimidation against his critics. And it’s making the overall environment more dangerous for public servants across the United States.

As NBC News points out —

…threats have been on the rise against federal lawmakers. The Capitol Police said in an assessment in February that threats against lawmakers, their families and staff increased in 2024 for the second year in a row, going from about 8,000 concerning statements and direct threats in 2023 to nearly 9,500 last year.

Criminally charged threats and attacks against members of Congress jumped more than 600% during Trump’s first term compared to President Barack Obama’s second term — 148 in the Trump years compared to 21 during the later Obama years, according to a study by the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST), a nonpartisan research center at the University of Chicago.

These statistics aren’t a coincidence. The trend lines are being driven sky-high by the smoldering spite of a single man. Donald Trump directs his ire against political foes, knowing that they’ll at least receive hate and perhaps something worse that might convince them to keep their mouths shut. Take a look at the chart NBC produced about people who’ve been targeted in just the past few weeks. The pattern is sickening and undeniable.

And there’s only one way to combat it: defiance.

Some public officials who’ve been on the receiving end of Donald Trump’s attacks — and the ensuing harassment from his supporters — have been cowed into silence. For instance, in the past ten years, many Members of Congress have spoken about the fear they felt after receiving death threats for standing against Trump; then they promptly retired and went quiet. Even some of the president’s most strident opponents have chosen to lay low since he was re-elected out of fear that he will put them in danger. Sadly, such capitulation tends to magnify the problem.

But others are serving as the antidote. The examples given in the NBC story — including the six Democratic lawmakers who warned troops about illegal orders, former Trump loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the Indiana Republican lawmakers who were told to redraw their election maps for Trump, “or else” — are all people who could have caved to Trump’s intimidation to avoid death threats. Instead, they chose to push back, knowing full well what it might mean.

Each of these individuals experienced harassment in the aftermath, but their persistence anyway tells us something important: that the power of Trump’s attacks is wearing off. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still alarming that the president is inspiring crowd-sourced violence against his opponents. The danger to their safety is real. But his ability to command loyalty by wielding the prospect of remote intimidation is diminishing. How do I know? Because people are defying him.

We should pay attention. This is how to turn the tide against mob politics — by refusing to be silenced. That’s what the so-called “Seditious Six” did… it’s what Marjorie Taylor Greene did… and it’s what my fellow Hoosiers did last week in Indiana. For too long, the slovenly man who occupies the Oval Office has been goading his miscreant minions to place duct tape over our mouths. But he’s losing his grip. Democrats and Republicans alike are tired of living in fear. And some of them are finally saying what all of us should be shouting: ENOUGH.

Your friend, in defiance,

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