If you haven’t heard of the “war on dissidents,” you may soon. The GOP’s meltdown after the FBI raided Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort was swift and fevered, with calls for investigations of the Justice Department and increasingly mainstream whispers of “civil war.” The right-wing corners of the internet mobilized in kind. The fertile far-right media ecosystem was more animated than it’s been in months, and the loose network of YouTube and podcast stars posted multiple shows filled with doomsday punditry within hours. Stephanie Foggett is focused on the darker, seedier parts of that ecosystem. Foggett is the director of global communications at The Soufan Group, a national and foreign security consultancy, and she monitors the white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups on discord and Telegram channels. She’s watched the reaction to the Trump news in real time, and she sees warning signs flashing in several places. Over the phone, she told me what she’s seen in those spaces so far, and what she expects if a case against Trump really does proceed. She said she’s become especially alarmed by the short distance between rhetoric in extremist forums and Fox News. Our conversation has been condensed and edited. Aymann Ismail: What are right-wing extremist channels saying about last night’s FBI raid? Stephanie Foggett: One big conspiracy is that the timing of all of this is meant to prevent Trump from running for president in 2024, bringing it back to stealing the election. There’s also lots of whataboutism, pulling from the years’ worth of talking points on Hunter Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and the Clinton foundation, all the way back to Benghazi: “Why is the state going after Trump when all of these things that we’ve cared about for so many years never see the light of day?” I’m also seeing posts like “There is no political solution.” One narrative that’s brewing, and this goes back years but especially over the past year, is that there is a “war on dissidents.” That term, dissidents, is really coming up a lot. There are so many Telegram channels. I follow lots of women, so there’s Dissident Housewives and Dissident Homeschooling, and all types of things. And today I’m seeing that this is a “war on dissidents”—that they’ve gone after a former president, and if they’ve been going after everyday citizens, and now they’re going after Trump, what’s gonna ever stop them from coming after you?
via slate: The Conspiracy Theory on the Far-Right Deep Web After the Trump FBI Raid