It’s not a secret that Donald Trump has been winking and nudging his True Believers with the suggestion that maybe they should start using their guns and other kinds of violence to defend his presidency. So it probably is no surprise that terrorism experts believe some of those same people are indeed preparing to engage in domestic terrorism around the 2020 election.

“Both the anti-quarantine protests that the far-right orchestrated in April and May and the recent civil unrest have accelerated the potential for more violence,” Daryl Johnson, a former Department of Homeland Security terrorism analyst, told Judy Thomas of the Associated Press. “I think it will pick up over the summer and especially into the fall as we head into the election.”

According to Johnson, much of the violence emanating from the radical right is being fueled by fears frequently promoted in right-wing media: of civil unrest, black protesters and left-wing radicals, the novel coronavirus, stay-at-home orders, and job losses.

“The fear is just feeding this radicalization and recruitment,” he said. “And that’s why they’re booming.”

Trump himself has been fanning those flames. An April 17 tweet directed at the anti-stay-at-home protesters to encourage them suggested a broader agenda: "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!; LIBERATE MINNESOTA!; LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!" he wrote.