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      Far fewer Americans support political violence than recent polls suggest

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      A series of recent events has sparked alarm about rising levels of political violence in the U.S. These episodes include the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, 2025; the murder of a Democratic Minnesota state legislator and her husband in June 2025; and two attempts to kill Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign.

      Some surveys have reported that a large number of Americans are willing to support the use of force for political ends, or they believe that political violence may sometimes be justified.

      My research is in political science and data analytics. I have conducted surveys for almost 25 years. For the past three years, I have studied new techniques that leverage artificial intelligence to conduct and analyze interviews.

      My own recent surveys, which use AI to ask people about why they give their answers, show that the surprisingly high level of support in response to these questions is likely the result of confusion about what these questions are asking, not actual support for political violence.

      Law enforcement officials lead a procession as pallbearers carry caskets after a funeral ceremony for Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, on June 28, 2025, in Minneapolis.
      Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

      A failure to communicate

      Why would multiple surveys get the answers to this important question wrong? I believe the cause is an issue called response error. It means that respondents don’t interpret a question in the way the researcher thinks they will.

      As a result, the answers people provide don’t really reflect what the researcher thinks the answers show.

      For example, asking whether someone would support the use of force to achieve a political goal raises the question of what the respondent thinks “use of force” means in this context. It could be interpreted as violence, but it could also be interpreted as using legal means to “force” someone to do something.

      Such response errors have been a concern for pollsters ever since survey research began. They can affect even seemingly straightforward questions.

      What did you mean by that?

      To avoid this problem, I used an AI interviewing system developed by CloudResearch, a well-known survey research company, to ask respondents some of the same questions about political violence from previous surveys. Then I used it to ask what they were thinking when they answered those questions. This process is called cognitive interviewing.

      I then used AI to go through these interviews and categorize them. Two short reports that summarize this process as applied to both polls are available online. These analyses have not been peer-reviewed, and the results should be considered very preliminary.

      Nonetheless, the results clearly demonstrate that respondents interpret these questions in very different ways.

      Nuance matters

      For example, in my survey, about 33% of Democrats agreed with the statement that “use of force is justified to remove President Trump from office.” However, when asked why they agreed, more than 57% gave responses like this: “I was not thinking physically but more in the sense that he – the president – might need to be ‘fired’ or forced out of office due to rules or laws.” Still others were envisioning future scenarios where a president illegally seizes power in a coup.

      Once you account for these different interpretations of the question, the AI only coded about 8% of Democrats as supporting use of force in violent terms under current conditions.

      Even here, there was substantial ambiguity – for example, this type of response was not unusual: “The language ‘use of force’ was a bit too broad for me. I could not justify killing Trump, for example, but less extreme uses of force were valid in my eyes.”

      Similarly, 29% of Republicans agreed that “use of the military is justified to stop protests against President Trump’s agenda.” However, almost all of the respondents who agreed with this statement envisioned the National Guard interceding nonviolently to stop violent protests and riots. Only about 2.6% of Republicans gave comments supporting use of the military against nonviolent protests.

      Almost all those who agreed that use of the military was justified expressed thoughts like this: “I see the military coming and acting as a police force to stop or prevent the demonstrations that become violent. Peaceful protesters must be allowed to exercise their right to free speech.”

      People prepare to march in a ‘No Kings’ protest against Trump administration policies in New York City on June 14, 2025.
      Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

      When is political violence justified?

      Even questions that explicitly ask about political violence are open to wide interpretation. Take, for example, this question: “Do you think it is ever justified for citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals?”

      The lack of a specific scenario or location in this question invites respondents to engage in all kinds of philosophical and historical speculation.

      In my survey, almost 15% of respondents said violence could sometimes be justified. When asked about the examples they were thinking of, respondents cited the American Revolution, the anti-Nazi French Resistance and many other incidents as a reason for their responses. Only about 3% of respondents said they were thinking about actions in the U.S. at the current time.

      Moreover, almost all respondents stated that violence should be a last resort when all other peaceful and legal methods fail.

      One respondent illustrated both problems with one sentence: “The (American) colonists tried petitions and negotiations first, but, when those efforts failed, they resorted to armed conflict to gain independence.”

      A call for understanding

      Even these numbers likely overestimate Americans’ support for political violence. I read the interviews, checking the AI system’s labeling, and concluded that, if anything, it was overestimating support for violence.

      Other factors may also be distorting reports of public support for political violence. Many surveys are conducted primarily online. One study estimated that anywhere from 4% to 7% of respondents in online surveys are “bogus respondents” who are selecting arbitrary responses. Another study reported that such respondents dramatically increase positive responses on questions about political violence.

      Respondents may also be willing to espouse attitudes anonymously online that they would never say or do in real life. Studies have suggested that “online disinhibition effects” or “survey trolling” can impact survey results.

      In sum, my preliminary research suggests that response error is a substantial problem in surveys about political violence.

      Americans almost universally condemn the recent political violence they have witnessed. The recent poll results showing otherwise more likely stem from confusion about what the questions are asking than actual support for political violence. More

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      Markets rebound amid latest US-China tariff spat as traders look to possible ‘Taco trade’

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      European stock markets have edged higher and cryptocurrencies rebounded amid signs that a new front in the US-China trade war may not be a severe as first feared.Tensions between Washington and Beijing escalated again on Friday and over the weekend, as Donald Trump threatened to impose additional US tariffs of 100% on China starting next month.The US president accused the country of “very hostile” moves to restrict exports of rare-earth minerals needed for American industry. Beijing said it would retaliate if Trump does not back down.However, Trump and senior US officials opened a door to a possible deal with China on Sunday. The president wrote on Truth Social: “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine! Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment. He doesn’t want Depression for his country, and neither do I. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!!”The comments have offered some comfort for investors in Europe, with stocks opening mostly higher on Monday. The UK’s blue-chip FTSE 100 index rose by 0.2% in early trading, while markets in France, Spain, Germany were all up by about 0.5%.Most big cryptocurrencies rebounded after a deep sell-off over the weekend. Bitcoin edged up by 0.3% to more than $115,000, after falling below $105,000 on Friday. Ether had dropped to less than $3,500 but rebounded to about $4,100.Richard Hunter, of the broker Interactive Investor, said investors were hoping for a “Taco trade”, which is the idea that markets rally because “Trump Always Chickens Out” (Taco) of aggressive tariff decisions.“The president’s propensity to shoot from the hip unsettles the investment environment, even though some are already speculating that the Taco trade is alive and well,” he said.However, a heightened sense of uncertainty is pushing investors to gold, which is considered a safe haven asset. Its spot price hit another new high on Monday, rising to as high as $4,078.5 an ounce.Derren Nathan, of the broker Hargreaves Lansdown, noted that US stock futures suggested that there could be “at least a partial rebound” when the market opens later on Monday.“Traders may be banking on a similar pattern where American indexes entered a six-month period of almost unbroken growth helped by a string of trade deals, and growing hopes of a soft-landing for the US economy,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionShares in Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca – which made a deal with Trump to lower drug prices and avoid tariffs over the weekend – initially rose on Monday morning, before falling back by 0.4%.Fears were still running high in Asia, with main markets tumbling on Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped by 2.3%, while the Taiwanese market fell by 1.4% and the Thai exchange declined by 2%. In mainland China, the Shenzhen exchange fell by 1.4% and the Shanghai market slipped 0.4%.On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian urged the US to promptly correct its “wrong practices” and said it would act to safeguard its interests.Despite the trade tensions, Chinese exports bounced back in September, topping forecasts as it diversified its markets.Chinese exports rose by 8.3% year on year last month, according to official customs data. This was the fastest growth since March, and beat a 6% increase forecast by economists polled by Reuters. It comes after a 4.4% increase in August. More

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      Trump news at a glance: Insurrection Act on the cards, says Vance, as president touts peace in the Middle East

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      The Trump administration is considering ways to invoke emergency powers, including utilising the Insurrection Act of 1807, which would allow president Donald Trump to deploy troops on US soil in the event of major unrest.Despite legal pushback, vice-president JD Vance has confirmed the White is seriously considering the idea. “The president’s looking at all of his options,” he told NBC’s News’s Meet the Press on Sunday, adding that “we are talking about this because crime has gotten out of control in our cities”.The acknowledgment came as president Trump boarded a plane for Jerusalem, where he is scheduled to speak at the Knesset and meet families of hostages set to be released from Gaza on Monday after helping to broker a major peace deal.The war, he proclaimed, “was over”, adding that relations in the Middle East would “normalize”.Here are the key stories:Trump ‘looking at all options’ amid threats to invoke Insurrection Act, Vance saysThe White House is talking about invoking the Insurrection Act that would allow the deployment of military troops on US soil to quell domestic unrest amid legal challenges over the moves, JD Vance confirmed on Sunday.Vance was asked on NBC News’s Meet the Press whether Donald Trump was seriously considering invoking the emergency power to deploy national guard forces and even the US military in domestic settings.Read the full storyTrump says ‘war is over’ in Gaza as Israel awaits release of hostagesThe war in Gaza has ended and the Middle East is going to “normalize”, Donald Trump said on Sunday as he flew to Israel, which was waiting for Hamas to release Israeli hostages as world leaders were gathering to discuss the next steps toward peace.“The war is over, you understand that,” Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One as he began a flight from Washington DC to Israel.Read the full storyChina warns US of retaliation over Trump’s 100% tariffs threatBeijing has told the US it will retaliate if Donald Trump fails to back down on his threat to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese imports as investors brace for another bout of trade war turmoil.China’s commerce ministry blamed Washington for raising trade tensions between the two countries after Trump announced on Friday that he would impose the additional tariffs on China’s exports to the US, along with new controls on critical software, by 1 November.Read the full storyTrump officials reportedly consider selling student loan debt to private investorsOfficials in the Trump administration are reportedly weighing the possibility of selling portions of the federal government’s $1.6tn student loan portfolio to private investors, which experts say could carry risks for both taxpayers and borrowers – potentially reshaping the student loan landscape in unpredictable ways.Read the full storyMaga figures back Bukele’s call for Trump to crack down on US judgesDonald Trump is not known for taking advice, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president, writes the Guardian’s Jason Wilson in this feature on the El Salvadorian leader’s thoughts on the US judiciary.El Salvador’s authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different tack, he writes, by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching “corrupt judges”.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      ‘Cavalier and aggressive’: why are border agents flooding into US cities? The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh has this piece on how border agents have become a key force in Trump’s migrant crackdown.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 11 October, 2025. More

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      Trump ‘looking at all options’ amid threats to invoke Insurrection Act, Vance says

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      The White House is talking about invoking the Insurrection Act that would allow the deployment of military troops on US soil to quell domestic unrest amid legal challenges over the moves, JD Vance confirmed on Sunday.Vance was asked on NBC News’s Meet the Press whether Donald Trump was seriously considering invoking the emergency power to deploy national guard forces and even the US military in domestic settings.“The president’s looking at all of his options,” he said, adding that “we are talking about this because crime has gotten out of control in our cities”.Trump’s attempts to use federal national guard forces in Democratic-run cities has faced challenges in the courts, most notably in Chicago in recent days.The vice-president’s ominous remarks came days after Trump referred to the Insurrection Act from the Oval Office, bluntly stating: “If I had to enact it, I would do that.” Military forces are forbidden from engaging in law enforcement duties on home soil.But under the Insurrection Act, which was signed in 1807, the president can deploy them domestically in cases of insurrection or rebellion, violence that is preventing the functioning of federal laws.The power was used during the 1960s civil rights movement during clashes over desegregation of the south but since then has been very rarely activated. The last time a president called on it was in 1992 when the governor of California requested military aid from George HW Bush in response to civil unrest in Los Angeles.In Sunday’s Meet the Press interview, Vance said Trump “hasn’t felt he needed to” invoke the Insurrection Act up to this point. But he confirmed that it was among the tactics being considered as the administration continues to be stymied in federal courts from deploying federalised national guard forces in Democratic-run cities.Federal courts have blocked the White House from using troops in Oregon and Illinois. On Thursday a federal judge prohibited the deployment of federalised national guard personnel in Chicago, admonishing the administration that she had “seen no credible evidence that there is a danger of a rebellion in the state of Illinois”.National guard troops have been sent into Illinois by the Trump administration from both Texas and California but under the temporary court order cannot be put out into the streets.Vance told NBC News that options such as the Insurrection Act were being considered because “there are places in Chicago where people are afraid to take their children … for fear of gun violence, for fear of gang drive-by shootings”.In a separate interview with This Week on ABC News, Vance said that Chicago had been given over to “lawlessness and gangs” and had a murder rate “that rivals the worst places in the third world”.In fact, violent crime has been falling at unprecedented rates in America’s biggest cities including Chicago over the past two years. Chicago is not in the top four large US cities with the highest murder rates – all of whom are in states controlled by Republicans.As Vance did the rounds of Sunday’s political talkshows, tension between the Trump administration and the Democratic states it is targeting exploded across TV screens. The vice-president was repeatedly asked by George Stephanopoulos on ABC News whether the Democratic governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, had committed a crime that could see him being prosecuted by the Department of Justice as have several other of Trump’s “political enemies”.Vance skirted the question until he was pressed into saying: “He should suffer consequences. Whether he has violated a crime I would leave to the courts, but he has certainly violated his oath of office and that seems pretty criminal to me.”Pritzker responded to the veiled threat by accusing Vance of coming out with a “tidal wave of lies”. The governor told This Week that he was not intimidated by the prospect of prosecution as has befallen the former FBI director James Comey and the New York attorney general Letitia James, who have both been indicted in recent days.Pritzker said: “I am not afraid. Do I think he could do it? He might. But as I have said before, come and get me. I mean, you’re dead wrong, Mr President and Mr Vice-President, and I will stand up for the law and the constitution.”Raw emotions were widely on display across the TV studios as the federal government shutdown entered day 12. The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, told Fox News Sunday that the crisis had been orchestrated by Democratic leaders in Congress as a partisan move “so that they can prove to their Marxist base that they are willing to fight Trump”.He said that after eight attempts to reopen the government had all failed in votes in the Senate, the shutdown was causing “real pain for real people – and the Democrats don’t seem to care”.On the same program, the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, denied that the Democratic stance was partisan. “We will sit down with anyone, any time, any place, go back to the White House, to have a bipartisan discussion about reopening the government,” he said.The Democrats’ aim, Jeffries added, was to “improve the quality of life of the American people and address the healthcare crisis that threatens tens of millions of people across the country”. More

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      ‘Cavalier and aggressive’: why are border agents flooding into US cities?

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      Border patrol officers have become ubiquitous footsoldiers in Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan, and lawyers and human rights advocates worry that the agency is expanding its aggressive tactics into cities far from its conventional range.Led by Gregory Bovino, a particularly hardline Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sector chief from southern California, border patrol agents have become a daily presence in several major cities across the US.Earlier this month in Chicago’s Southwest Side, a border patrol shot a woman multiple times amid protests against the Trump administration’s militarized immigration raids in the city.This summer in Los Angeles, border agents on horseback swept through a public park downtown – riding alongside national guard troops and other agents in military vehicles. In southern California, videos of border patrol agents pinning down and beating 48-year-old landscaper ​​Narciso Barranco went viral.Agents have also made arrests in California’s agricultural Central Valley and at New York immigration courthouses. They have set up immigration checkpoints in Washington DC.Lawyers and human rights advocates say the agents, who are trained to block illegal entries, drug smugglers and human traffickers at the country’s borders, may be ill-suited to conduct civil immigration enforcement in urban communities.“The border patrol is certainly quite cavalier, and has been very aggressive historically as it goes about its enforcement responsibilities,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University. They tend to do their work in rural places and isolated parts of the United States. And they generally are not trained in community interactions and policing.”View image in fullscreenUntil recently, the agency usually worked close to the southern US border – especially along the south-western border – though the department has long had the authority to conduct patrols more inland.Under a 1946 statute, Border Patrol agents have the ability to conduct warrantless searches within a “reasonable distance” – or up to 100 miles – from any international boundaries. Those boundaries include international land borders as well as coastlines – so in effect, their range encapsulates most US major cities – including LA, New York and Washington DC. Chicago falls within this 100-mile zone, because the Great Lakes are considered a maritime boundary.Nearly two-thirds of the US population lives within the zone.Still, García Hernández said, until recently, it was highly uncommon to see border patrol agents stray far from the south-western border.But now illegal border crossings are at a historic low, and the administration has deployed thousands of military personnel to the southern border, freeing up the Border Patrol, he said – ready and available as force multipliers in the administration’s deportation mission. The department currently has about 19,000 agents. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which encompasses the Border Patrol, is about 60,000 strong – making it the largest law enforcement agency in the country.Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), meanwhile, has about 5,500 immigration enforcement officers, plus an additional 7,000 agents tasked with investigating cross-border criminal activities. Though the agency is making a massive push to hire 10,000 more agents, that process is expected to take some time.It’s unclear exactly how many Border Patrol agents have joined up with Ice and other federal agents in raids targeting Chicago, Los Angeles and other big cities.DHS did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s query.As border agents stray away from their original mission, legal experts have raised concerns that they are bringing along with them a culture of combative enforcement. “CBP has a history of problematic treatment of people, in my opinion, perhaps worse than any other law enforcement agency,” said Deborah Anthony, a professor of legal studies at University of Illinois Springfield with an expertise in constitutional law and the legality of Border Patrol operations.The Border Patrol has long had “more leeway” with the US constitution’s fourth amendment’s protections against random and arbitrary stops and searches, Anthony said. They are able to set up checkpoints and, in some cases, roving patrols, she said – but these authorities are limited by law.Agents cannot pull people over without “reasonable suspicion” of an immigration violation, or search homes or vehicles without a warrant or probable cause.In recent deployments, however, agents appear to be flouting these restrictions. Earlier this month, Border Patrol agents, along with other federal agents, conducted a military-style immigration raid of an apartment complex in Chicago. Video evidence showed agents indiscriminately bursting through front doors.“All the evidence suggests there were egregious violations of rights, both in the treatment of people, in the lack of a warrant, in the breaking down of people’s doors, in what seems to be almost indiscriminate targeting of almost everyone in the building,” Anthony said.View image in fullscreenImmigrant advocates have had limited success in opposing this type of indiscriminate enforcement. In a January operation that took place shortly before Trump took office, plainclothes border agents poured into California’s Central Valley region, conducting random stops along the highway. In response, the ACLU sued the Border Patrol on behalf of the United Farm Workers union – and a federal district court found that the operation violated the fourth amendment.And in June a federal lawsuit from advocacy groups accused the Border Patrol, Ice and other agencies of violating rights by profiling street vendors, car-wash workers, day laborers and others, and making arrests without adequate cause – resulting in a temporary restriction against such enforcement in California and parts of the west coast.But proving such fourth amendment violations can be a big burden on advocates, said Anthony. And Border Patrol has a long history of aggressive enforcement tactics.“There’s evidence of everything from legal and constitutional violations to physical and sexual abuse and mistreatment, and very little recourse or accountability,” Anthony said. “Internal discipline within [the] Border Patrol is very problematic and that has been systematically the case for a long time now.”A 2023 report by the Washington Office on Latin America (Wola) and the Kino Border Initiative (KBI), migrant rights advocacy groups, detailed persistent human rights abuses without accountability within the agency. More

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      China warns US of retaliation over Trump’s 100% tariffs threat

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      Beijing has told the US it will retaliate if Donald Trump fails to back down on his threat to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese imports as investors brace for another bout of trade war turmoil.China’s commerce ministry blamed Washington for raising trade tensions between the two countries after Trump announced on Friday that he would impose the additional tariffs on China’s exports to the US, along with new controls on critical software, by 1 November.“Wilful threats of high tariffs are not the right way to get along with China,” a spokesperson for the commerce ministry said on Sunday, according to the state news agency Xinhua. “China’s position on the trade war is consistent. We do not want it, but we are not afraid of it.“If the United States insists on going the wrong way, China will surely take resolute measures to protect its legitimate rights and interests.”Trump and senior US administration officials opened a door to a China trade deal on Sunday as market futures showed another US stock market drop.“Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine! Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment. He doesn’t want Depression for his country, and neither do I. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.The message came after JD Vance called on Beijing to “choose the path of reason” in the latest spiralling trade fight between the world’s two leading economies that has shaken stock markets.Dow futures showed a drop of 887 points ahead of the stock markets’ open on Monday. The index dropped sharply lower on Friday after reignited fears of a trade war with China when threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese imports after China said it would restrict rare earth exports. The Dow fell 879 points, or 1.9%.“It’s going to be a delicate dance, and a lot of it is going to depend on how the Chinese respond,” Vance said on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures. “If they respond in a highly aggressive manner, I guarantee you, the president of the United States has far more cards than the People’s Republic of China. If, however, they’re willing to be reasonable,” he said, then the US would, too.The US president shocked the financial markets on Friday when he accused China of “very hostile” moves to restrict exports of rare-earth materials needed by US industry.It prompted heavy falls on Wall Street, where about $2tn (£1.5tn) was wiped off the value of the US stocks.China insisted on Sunday that its latest export controls on rare earths such as holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium were legitimate.“China’s export controls are not export bans,” said the commerce ministry spokesperson. “All applications of compliant export for civil use can get approval, so that relevant businesses have no need to worry.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe measures were introduced after Washington added a number of Chinese firms to its export control list in a crackdown on the use of foreign affiliates to circumvent export curbs on chipmaking equipment and other goods and technology.The UK’s FTSE 100 share index fell almost 1% on Friday as Trump’s threat sparked a late selloff. The futures market indicates there could be further losses in London and New York on Monday, although there could also be relief that Beijing has not yet retaliated.Bitcoin, which had tumbled 8% after Trump’s post on Truth Social, rose by 4% on Sunday after China refrained from retaliating.Trump’s tariff threat was “a rather unwelcome development for financial markets” as investors had “by and large moved on from the trade and tariff story”, said Michael Brown, a senior research strategist at the brokerage firm Pepperstone.“Chiefly, the question that every man and his dog are attempting to answer is whether this is a credible threat, that the Trump admin might follow through on, or whether this is another example of the ‘escalate to de-escalate’ strategy that Trump used so frequently earlier in the year.“A strategy where outlandish and ridiculous tariff figures are threatened, in an attempt to focus minds, extract concessions from the other party, and ultimately come to agreement faster than otherwise might’ve been possible.” More

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      Doge-ish comes to Florida: a DeSantis loyalist is going after ‘waste’ in Democratic cities

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      The words of Blaise Ingoglia, the Ron DeSantis loyalist handpicked to lead the Republican Florida governor’s Doge-style assault on local government spending, could not have been more prophetic.“Expect a knock on the door from us,” Ingoglia warned on 1 October as he announced upcoming audits for Democratic-run cities and counties whose “excessively wasteful” pecuniary habits displeased the DeSantis administration.The knock came soon enough, but in an unexpected place. Two armed police officers in bulletproof vests, sent by the criminal investigations division of Ingoglia’s Florida department of financial services, turned up at the home of a retired couple in Largo, demanding to know whether they had sent him a handwritten postcard that contained only three words: “You lack values.”“It was designed to intimidate us,” said James O’Gara, a military veteran who said the non-threatening card was one of dozens he has sent to various local, state and national politicians as part of a campaign of peaceful protest.“I presume that most of them aren’t even read, they just get thrown in the garbage. But I wrote one to Blaise Ingoglia about his Doge activities, and two law enforcement officers are standing at my doorstep telling my wife they need to speak to me.“They’re all in black, ‘police’ in giant reflective lettering across their vests, weapons at their side and all the other stuff on their belts. It was very intimidating for not even a threatening statement. I mean, the whole financial responsibility issue … they used very little judgment, or very little good judgment.”Sydney Booker, Ingoglia’s communications director, insisted he had not seen the postcard, and that the decision to conduct a threat assessment on the O’Garas was made “solely by law enforcement personnel”.In a statement to the Guardian, she said: “While it is unfortunate that this incident occurred, the chief financial officer trusts that law enforcement officials are taking necessary steps to protect public safety and the safety of elected officials while also preserving the first amendment rights of Floridians, especially in light of recent events.“As a conservative who believes in free speech, the CFO has never shied away from candid conversations and vigorous debate throughout his career in public service, and he does not plan to start.”Booker did not address a question about whether the visit was a justifiable use of resources given Ingoglia’s pledge to eliminate wasteful spending of taxpayers’ money. But O’Gara rejected the assertion that it was necessary for public safety, and said it was a sinister move designed to quash dissent.“It flatly doesn’t protect the politicians and it doesn’t protect the rights of citizens,” he said.“They were making small talk about my being in the infantry, about being in the army. Somebody had to do some research beyond just looking up my voter registration and getting my address.”The episode has parallels to previous incidents in which Florida state officials dispatched law enforcement to private homes. A Fort Myers man said he was visited in September last year by a detective carrying his personal information and challenging his signature on a petition for an abortion rights ballot amendment DeSantis was trying to defeat.A year earlier, officers from DeSantis’s newly formed election fraud police unit arrested at gunpoint two men accused of voting illegally. The cases were later dismissed.Ingoglia’s scrutiny of city and county budgets, meanwhile, is facing headwinds.Officials in Broward county, the most heavily Democratic county in the state, are pushing back on his claim of $189m in “excessive, wasteful spending”. They say it is a faulty calculation of its general revenue fund based on “inaccurate, factually incorrect numbers” of new residents and inflation, rather than any specific examples of waste or fraud.Ingoglia’s figure, they say, also overlooks new mandates from the state that the county is now required to fund.“We wrote to him, we said: ‘Please show us where you got your starting point from, your population growth number and your inflation numbers, because they don’t match any of the generally accepted numbers.’ He has not enlightened us,” said Steven Geller, a Broward county commissioner and former mayor.“If you use his formula with the generally accepted number, numbers plural, we are under the number he says we should be.”Geller also pointed to new demands on county coffers for items that previously came from state funds, including the operation of driver’s license offices, some tax collection and the enforcement of a “draconian” state law that makes homelessness a crime.“The CFO might have a point if the legislature would stop giving us unfunded mandates. However, even ignoring that, the CFO used an inflation factor which is not the generally accepted inflation number, and in fact, we can’t find any number that matches the number he used,” he said.Geller said DeSantis “blasted Broward for overspending” the same day he revealed his Doge initiative, without having examined any of the county’s figures.“We’re the largest Democratic county in Florida. We have 2 million people and nine county commissioners, all of us Democrat. So is it a coincidence we’re the first county they Doge’d, or that he announced the results before they had any data?” he said.In addition to Broward, Ingoglia has appeared in recent days in several other Democratic-run municipalities, making broad allegations of fraud and excessive spending. But analysts say there is little evidence, other than a few individual examples of comparatively small amounts going towards LGBTQ+ events or diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.Officials in the cities of St Petersburg and Orlando, and Hillsborough, Orange, Pinellas and Seminole counties, all have rejected Ingoglia’s claims.Robert Jarvis, professor at Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad college of law, said the motivation of DeSantis, who will be termed out of office in 2027, for the Doge purge was purely political. It is tied, he said, to the governor’s efforts to abolish or reform property taxes and secure more power for the state.“There’s no evidence that local governments in Florida are wasting money. And so there’s no reason for what DeSantis is doing from a financial standpoint,” he said.“Even Ingoglia admits he hasn’t found any wasteful spending, but they’re going after the things they like to go after, like Pride parades, DEI initiatives, things the DeSantis base is against.“And going after his enemies allows him to ignore how he has wasted money on things like Alligator Alcatraz, a tax holiday for assault weapons, going after Disney in lawsuits that he keeps losing.”Jarvis said Ingoglia, who was appointed chief financial officer by DeSantis and is running for election to the role next year, appeared a useful ally of the governor at the right time.“Next year, DeSantis wants to have that referendum to cut local property taxes and be able to say, after he goes out of office, that he saved all this money at the state level, and got property taxes rolled back,” he said.“If that comes to be, it will hurt local governments, but DeSantis does not care about local governments, just like the Florida legislature has been at war with local governments for years.“Local governments tend not to do what Republicans want them to do. They tend to be more focused on actually delivering services to their residents.” More

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      Maga figures back Bukele’s call for Trump to crack down on US judges

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      Donald Trump is not known for taking advice, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.But El Salvador’s authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different tack by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching “corrupt judges”.His call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele’s calls to impeach US judges.Experts say Bukele’s latest intervention comes at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and in a period where the Trump administration is employing the same authoritarian tactics used by authoritarians in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India and Bukele’s own El Salvador to subvert democratic accountability.Bukele’s online call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the US’s legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup”, and his mockery of a federal judge’s order to halt deportation flights sending accused illegal immigrants to his country’s brutal prison system.Bukele’s impeachment call was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been gunning to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” on the basis of small, non-violent protests outside the city’s homeland security facility.Miller, Bondi and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump’s executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration’s political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through to the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, the first year of published records, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023’s record of 630 threats made.The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton’s Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.Experts say that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media”. It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration”.Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, including by Bukele.In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.“The administration is looking around at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.“They continue to reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”Leonard said: “Judges’ only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism“ by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings“ this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. ‘We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges”On the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. Right now, I don’t think that the desire of the Trump administration is to remove the judges via impeachment. It is to scare the judges enough to get some of them to think twice about ruling against the administration.”She said: “Bukele knows how to play that game. He’s very skilled at it. I’m not surprised that he’s annotating the US crisis and cheering on Trump. He knows that Trump lives online; he’s also currying favor.”Beirich said: “It’s not surprising that someone like Bukele would do this, or Hungary’s Orbán, given their autocratic behavior. But an American president supposedly supportive of democracy should know better.” More