EXTREMISTS EMBOLDENED

Until the very end of his presidency, Donald Trump's cultivation of the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and other violent far-right groups was usually implicit. He counted on their political support but stopped short of asking them to do anything.

- Juliette Kayyem

Trump had mastered a form of radicalization sometimes known as stochastic terrorism-riling up followers in ways that made bloodshed likely while preserving plausible deniability on his part.

But in the weeks after November 3, 2020, his language became more direct.

He named the place and occasion for a "big protest" on January 6, 2021, when Congress would be certifying his election loss and told supporters, "Be there, will be wild!" When that day arrived, Trump told the assembled crowd, "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." With that, the president of the United States embraced violence as the natural extension of Americans' democratic differences, and he has not stopped since.