Donald Trump is Assembling a 'Titushky' Style Maga Mob

As the US President pardons violent Trump-supporting rioters, Alexandra Hall Hall finds disturbing parallels with the methods deployed by Georgia's authoritarian regime

A coalition of Proud Boy groups march through the streets of Washington DC in support of Donald J Trump on the day of his Inauguration. Photo: Dave Decker/ZUMA Press Wire/Alamy

Of all the shocking actions taken by Trump since he became President for the second time, the most egregious is his mass pardon of over 1,500 people found guilty of involvement in the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol, including those convicted of assaulting police officers. He also commuted the sentences of fourteen other participants, found guilty of the most serious charges, such as seditious conspiracy.

Four people died during the riots, and five police officers afterwards. Four of those officers took their own lives, and one died of a stroke following injuries sustained at the scene.

Trump’s pardons covered prominent ringleaders of the violence, including former Proud Boys leader, Enrique Tarrio, and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, both serving lengthy sentences due to their prominent roles in the insurrection. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Proud Boys are a “general hate” group, while the Oath Keepers, founded in 2009, is one of the largest anti-government, far-right organisations in the US.

Immediately upon his release from federal prison in Maryland, Rhodes travelled to Washington DC to show support for fellow rioters being released from there. Other supporters of the “J6 Hostages”, as Trump has recently been describing them - in a grotesque insult to genuine hostages - were also gathered there en masse. Speaking to reporters, they hailed the convicted rioters as American “patriots”, who were at the Capitol on that fateful day, merely to exercise peacefully their first amendment right of free speech. Many tried to argue that the violence had been instigated by planted FBI agents, or antifa activists.

Another prominent figure to be pardoned was Jacob Chansley, the so-called “QAnon Shaman,” who immediately declared upon leaving jail that he was going to buy some guns, writing on X “NOW I AM GONNA BUY SOME MOTHA F—– GUNS!!! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!”

By releasing such violent criminals back onto the streets, Trump is not just trying to whitewash away the appalling events of January 6, as nothing more than an innocent protest by peaceful patriots. He is also sending a signal that he has the back of his most ardent supporters, who can rely on him to shield them from future criminal sanctions, if they break the law again whilst claiming to act in his defence.

Trump has effectively created a cadre of loyal foot soldiers, who can be trusted to do his bidding, even if it involves active violence. He can unleash them to facilitate round-ups of illegal immigrants, to intimidate political opponents or critics in the media, and generally pressurise influential figures or groups in the executive, judiciary, legislature, and private sector to fall into line.