Militias ramp up recruitment after Trump rally shooting: 'Become strong'

15 July 2024

After former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Western Pennsylvania on Saturday, July 13, many journalists and political scholars expressed worries that more political violence will follow. And some far-right militia members have called for violent retaliation.

Wired's Tess Owens reports that Scot Seddon, the Pennsylvania-based founder of the American Patriots Three Percenters (APIII), has posted a video on TikTok telling his allies to prepare for the possibility of civil war.

In the video, Seddon declared, "This is not going to just go away. We need to become f*****g strong, f*****g lions. Start reaching out to individuals in your state that are trustworthy, that have the like-minded vision of local strong communities, to hold down the fort, just in case (of) war, or for when s*** hits the fan."

According to Owens, "incendiary rhetoric and calls for retaliatory violence" have "exploded online" following the attempt on Trump's life.

"In the past year," Owens reports, "APIII has made a significant recruitment push across major social media platforms, such as Facebook, X, TikTok, and even NextDoor, according to research from the Tech Transparency Project shared exclusively with Wired. Despite featuring 'Three Percenters' in its name — a clear nod to the militia movement — APIII touts a disclaimer on its website insisting that it is not a militia."

Owens adds, "That's in line with the broader trend seen since January 6, 2021, when paramilitary activists scrambled to distance themselves from the militia movement implicated in the Capitol riot. But groups like APIII have increasingly been trying to rebuild the militia movement from the ground up, urging people to get organized in their communities.

Read the full Wired article at this link.

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