Yahoo Movies Unpacking the Far-Right Terminology Aiming to Discredit the Federal Investigation into Donald Trump
MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Donald Trump
A number of talking points are being echoed in far-right groups following news that Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home was visited by FBI agents executing a federal search warrant on Monday.
Some Republican officials, as well as conservative outlets like Fox News, are offering up near-identical descriptions of the search, using phrases like "banana republic" to describe the state of the U.S. and "Department of Injustice" to describe the DOJ, despite the fact that the search warrant was legally authorized.
Below, a few of the phrases that have been swirling through far-right circles — and how they aim to baselessly discredit the federal investigation and outrage Americans.
Banana Republic
Many Trump loyalists have described the search of Mar-a-Lago as being indicative of a "banana republic," a term used to describe a politically unstable country run by despots.
Rep. Lauren Boebert argued that the U.S. was "turning into a banana republic at record speed," writing that the GOP "must set up a Select Committee to investigate the FBI's politically-motivated raid on Mar-a-Lago and on ALL the fraudulent persecution of President Trump from our government."
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also used the phrase "banana republic" when describing the FBI's investigation on Twitter: "The raid of MAL is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime's political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves. Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic."
Though the full details of the search have yet to be made public, the fact that the Department of Justice could search the office and personal quarters of a former commander-in-chief would signify the opposite of a banana republic — that no one in the U.S. is above the law, and that even a former president cannot live with impunity.
Civil War
When rioters descended on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, they were emboldened by violent rhetoric stemming from President Trump and his allies — and the belief that the only way to preserve the integrity of the nation was through a show of force. Their actions resulted in unnecessary deaths and amplified political division that remains in place more than a year and a half later.
Following the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago, the cycle seems to be repeating itself. Mentions of "civil war" immediately surged online Monday night and far-right leaders began framing the law enforcement investigation as a war brought on by Democrats.
"This is the rogue behavior of communist countries, NOT the United States of America!!!" Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a controversial Georgia lawmaker and staunch Trump ally, posted on Twitter Monday. "These are the type of things that happen in countries during civil war."
In an interview with Fox News, Sen. Ted Cruz said that the Department of Justice was not intended to be "the enforcement arm of the Democratic National Committee."
It's important to note that neither voters nor lawmakers on either side of the aisle are in a position to control the FBI's investigations, and characterizing members of the Democratic Party as aggressors in a self-contained law enforcement investigation is a political tactic that runs the risk of putting Americans of all ideologies in danger.
On Tuesday, Rep. Boebert tweeted, "Today, more than most days, I'm thankful for the Second Amendment." Minutes later, she tweeted a quote commonly attributed to Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin: "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."
An additional tweet by Boebert on Wednesday said, "If they want to go scorched earth, then scorched earth it is."
Capitol rioter Stephen Ayres recently testified at a House hearing that feeding into Trump and his allies' rhetoric in Jan. 2021 changed his life for the worse.
"I was hanging on every word he was saying. Every word he was putting out, I was following it," Ayres said. Now, he said he knows better, but speaking to people who still cling to Trump's skewed view of current events, he warned: "Take the blinders off. Make sure you step back and see what's going on. Before it's too late."
Department of Injustice
Another common theme amongst critics of the search is that it's somehow unjust — and that those who knew about the search are simply political foes of the MAGA movement.
"This has never been a country where people who take power, by becoming president, now use that power to persecute their past or future political opponents. We've never seen that," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said in a video Monday. "Until tonight."
"This #DepartmentOfInjustice must be held accountable," Rep. Boebert wrote on Twitter, alongside a video in which she decried the search. "It was President Trump today, but it's you next if we don't take a stand."
The so-called weaponization of the Department of Justice is something that made headlines during President Trump's administration, when he was accused of overstepping boundaries in an unprecedented way and directing DOJ officials to keep him in power, an alleged action that led to multiple resignations and was corroborated by officials in sworn testimony.
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The White House has flatly denied that President Joe Biden was responsible for the search, and has said Biden only found out on Monday when the media began reporting it.
"The President and the White House learned about this FBI search from public reports. We learned, just like the American public did yesterday, and we did not have advance notice of this activity," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday, one day after the FBI executed a magistrate-signed search warrant as part of its investigation into alleged mishandling of White House records.
Further, the issuing of the search warrant does not mean that the subject is guilty — or even accused of a crime, as The New York Times points out.
FBI 'Raid'
Rep. Greene took to Twitter to describe the search as a "tyrannical FBI raid," adding that it was unifying the GOP "in ways I haven't seen. In January, we take on the enemy within."
Trump himself has also seized on the "raid" terminology, using the word to fundraise in the hours after the search warrant was executed.
"MAR-A-LAGO was RAIDED," a text to his supporters sent Tuesday morning read. "The Radical Left is corrupt. Return the power to the people! Will you fight with me? Donate."
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The Guardian reports that the Republican National Committee offered a similar descriptor in its own fundraising email, which read: "Biden's FBI raided President Trump's beautiful Florida home. Hard to believe it but it's true."
To call it a "raid," however, politicizes what is a standard legal investigation process brought on by an executed search warrant — one approved by Trump appointee Christopher Wray, who leads the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Gestapo
In an interview with Fox Business Tuesday morning, Florida Sen. Rick Scott drew a comparison between the search of Mar-a-Lago and the German Secret State Police, saying: "The way our federal government has gone, it's like what we thought about the Gestapo, people like that, that they just go after people, what we thought about the Soviet Union, look at Latin America."
On Fox News, former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon — who was recently convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress — said "the FBI right now is the Gestapo." In Rep. Boebert's video, she also used the word, calling the search "Gestapo crap."
The Mar-a-Lago search was carried out by the FBI, an agency overseen by the U.S. Department of Justice, which is headed by a Trump appointee.
Some have noted that, not only is a lawful Department of Justice search not comparable to the actions of the Nazi secret police — which was responsible for deporting Jews to concentration camps and killing sites — but that Trump himself has spoken of admiring German generals who were loyal to Hitler.
'Preserve Your Documents and Clear Your Calendar'
In a tweet sent out Monday night, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy threatened to investigate Attorney General Merrick Garland should the GOP regain its House majority, writing: "I've seen enough. The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization."
He continued: "Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar." That phrase was quickly echoed by Rep. Boebert and applied more generally to Democrats.
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As some have pointed out, McCarthy's calls on Garland to "preserve his documents" seem somewhat ironic, considering the search of Mar-a-Lago reportedly hinges on whether Trump took classified documents from the White House and to his private residence at Mar-a-Lago after he left office.
