How Trump ally Michael Flynn is priming supporters for violence ahead of the election

It’s 2020 all over again. That same day, he published a Substack article entitled “We Are Facing the Breakup of America as We Know It,” while characterizing the candidacy of Democrat Kamala Harris as “a totalitarian tyrannical oligarch running as a group of communists and managing our lives at the top of an overarching federal government.” Sharing his article on X, Flynn claimed, “We are in the midst of the third version of an American Revolution.” On Monday, the eve of Harris and Trump’s debate in Philadelphia, Flynn used his X account to re-post a false claim by the anonymous account “Wall Street Apes” that “You Can Actually See the 2024 Presidential Election Being Rigged in Real Time.” Flynn praised the post as “exceptional work” while warning that “we could seriously lose the republic.” Some of Flynn’s close associates have called on Trump supporters to resist the federal government violently or to carry out political violence against Democrats and other perceived enemies. A new cycle of false election fraud claims On Tuesday, before his debate with Harris in Philadelphia, Trump took to Truth Social to demand that Republican lawmakers shut down the federal government by not approving a budget if they’re unable to pass legislation on election security while falsely claiming that “the Democrats are trying to ‘stuff’ voter registrations with illegal aliens.” Flynn applauded and shared the Trump’s Truth Social post. “I probably took a bullet to the head,” Trump said, pointing at Harris, “because of the things that they say about me.” Ivan Raiklin, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who has spent the past nine months promoting a so-called “Deep State target list,” re-shared an X post in which Flynn warned that the U.S. intelligence community is “manipulating the outcome of what we are going to face over the next couple of months.” Commenting on Flynn’s post, Raiklin appeared to advocate for Harris’ assassination in retaliation for the attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, Pa. “In a duel, each side get one shot,” Raiklin wrote. ‘We go scorched earth’ Expanding on the warning made by Flynn before Labor Day that there might not be an election in November, Byrne posted on X six hours before the presidential debate that Harris — along with President Joe Biden, and former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton — “will do anything to avoid the election in 60 days, even start World War III.” Twice during the debate on Tuesday, Trump warned that the Biden/Harris administration’s handling of the Ukraine war could lead to “World War III.” Byrne and Flynn both paint a conspiratorial post-election scenario of chaos and strife, should Trump not be declared the winner.