The fundraising pitch from Donald Trump was neither accurate nor subtle.
It read: “1 MONTH UNTIL ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE! THEY WANT TO SENTENCE ME TO DEATH.”
The message blasted out to his supporters was a reference to the former president’s sentencing scheduled for July 11, when he faces fines or possible jail time after being convicted on 34 charges of business fraud in connection with hush money paid to an adult-film star. A death sentence is not under consideration in the case. Neither is a “GUILLOTINE,” as another fundraising pitch suggested last week.
“I think those are clearly an escalation over and above some incredibly heated rhetoric and some irresponsible rhetoric we’ve seen over time,” said Matthew Hindman, a professor at George Washington University who studies digital emails. “The fact that those messages continue to be sent out tell us about something. The rhetoric has been driven by user response and user donations. If this extreme rhetoric continues to generate funds, it’s going to be rewarded with an even more extreme response next time.”
Some recent pitches have raised eyebrows even among longtime Trump observers and advisers. Emails falsely claimed that the FBI wanted to shoot Trump during a court-authorized search of his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida
Trump’s warning of “ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!” resembles his tweet calling for his supporters to come to a rally Jan. 6, 2021 — “Be there, will be wild!” — that helped inspire violent extremist groups to buy weapons and make attack plans. Former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon said on the eve of the rally that “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” and the rally turned into a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol.
More recently, Trump has used terms such as “bedlam” or a “bloodbath” to describe possible outcomes if he loses the November election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he said when asked directly about the possibility of violence in an April
interview with Time magazine.
Hindman said the campaign is unlikely to dial back its rhetoric as long as the money was flowing. On a recent afternoon at Mar-a-Lago, Trump gave two wrestling stars signed hats and photos of his mug shot.
One of the wrestlers, podcaster Logan Paul, laughed and called him a “gangster.”
“No way! No way!” Paul said, holding up the mug shot.
“Isn’t it crazy, though?” Trump responded. “And it sells.”
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