How Trump’s intimidation tactics have reshaped the Republican Party

Sometimes the intimidation happens behind closed doors. At other times, it plays out in public, amplified by right-wing influencers and Trump himself. Congressman Rice experienced both kinds.

After Rice cast his ballot to impeach Trump in January 2021, then-House Minority Whip Steve Scalise immediately phoned him, Rice told Reuters. The Republican leadership had told party members to vote their conscience, but Scalise was calling to register disapproval.

“He said, ‘Tom you hit the wrong button,'” Rice recalled. “I said, ‘No, I didn’t, Steve. I loaded it exactly the way I intended.'” Scalise’s office did not respond when Reuters asked about the exchange.

Rice received hundreds of angry emails and voice messages after the vote, including a warning “to watch out.” Within weeks, the South Carolina Republican Party censured him, a formal expression of disapproval.

Trump piled on, calling Rice “a disaster” who was “respected by no one.” At public events, some constituents called Rice a traitor, he said. Others harangued him for condemning the pro-Trump rioters who sacked the Capitol. One state politician confided to Rice he wanted to denounce Trump, too, but knew voters would throw him out, Rice recalled without identifying the individual.

Rice said he doesn’t regret the impeachment vote: “If you are conservative and support the Constitution, you cannot support what Donald Trump has done.”

Trump had help in hounding him. After the vote, Rice and the nine other Republican House members who defied Trump were targeted by Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist in Trump’s White House. On Bannon’s daily “War Room” podcast, Rice was lambasted by Jason Miller, a Trump 2020 campaign advisor, as “worthless” and “not coming back.” The “War Room” abuse went on for two days. In an email responding to questions from Reuters, Miller did not address his attacks on Rice.

Bannon’s “War Room” program, a go‐to interview for pro-Trump celebrities, claims to reach millions of viewers. That puts him at the center of a far-right online influencer network that joins and amplifies Trump’s calls to purge unfaithful officials. Other top MAGA figures have been hosting the show since July, when Bannon began a five-month prison sentence for refusing to testify to Congress about the Capitol attack.

Nebraska congressman Don Bacon, a retired Air Force general and evangelical Christian with a firmly conservative voting record, says he has been threatened and harassed repeatedly by people “radicalized” by far-right media personalities such as Bannon.

Last October, Bannon targeted Bacon as disloyal to the Trump agenda after the congressman opposed the candidacy of Trump ally Jim Jordan as speaker of the House of Representatives. “Bacon is one of the hardcore of the hardcore. He’s never-Trump, hates Trump,” Bannon said, urging the audience to call the lawmaker’s office.

They did. Bacon and his wife each received anonymous threats and harassing messages by text and phone, he said. One caller vowed to stalk and molest his wife, prompting her to begin sleeping with a loaded gun. “You think you’re the chosen one because you married the pig,” warned another message reviewed by Reuters. “See you later, bitch.”

Bacon says Bannon and other far-right commentators inspire an “ends-justify-the-means” mentality with their audiences in enforcing loyalty to Trump and his agenda. “You have a few bloggers out there and people on social media with a million followers, and everything they say is gospel,” he said. Bacon, seeking a fifth House term, managed to win the Republican nomination for his seat this spring with more than 60% of the vote, despite the state Republican Party chairman endorsing his opponent.

Fred Upton, a former Republican congressman from Michigan, also voted to impeach Trump over the Capitol riots. That day, Bannon called on his show for constituents “to deal with” the Republican impeachers. Upton was deluged with threats.

“Who the HELL do you think you are?!!! You work for US!!! There is NO GOP without MAGA Nation!,” read one emailed message, which Upton shared with Reuters. “Get ready for hell. Cause we’re going to make your life a living one,” the email said.

Upton said lawmakers are desperate to avoid attacks by Trump and Bannon. “Nobody wants to be on that list.”

Reuters was unable to contact Bannon in prison and no one at his office was authorized to speak on his behalf.

In a December 2022 social media post, Trump savaged Upton after the lawmaker’s name was floated as a candidate for House Speaker, calling him a “RINO” and “a disaster for anything having to do with the word Republican.”

Upton opted not to seek re-election after a new map of his district put him in the same seat as a Republican who had Trump’s strong backing. He said he worries about score-settling against enemies in a second Trump White House, citing Trump’s vows in speeches to exact “retribution.”

“They’re going to be going after people,” he said.

Two categories of Republicans have faced the heaviest fire from Trump, the review of his social media posts shows: his rivals for this year’s presidential nomination and officials who resisted his baseless claim that the 2020 election was rigged.

Trump ridiculed early rival Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, more than 250 times as “DeSanctimonious.” And he derided his last rival to drop out, former South Carolina Governor Haley, more than 50 times as “Birdbrain.”

Both were subjected to threats and harassment throughout the campaign, prompting increased security measures, according to their respective offices and law enforcement agencies. DeSantis, who later endorsed Trump, did not respond to a request for comment. As Trump competed with Haley for the Republican nomination, some of his supporters posted violent messages on social media, calling for her death or physical abuse. Her office told Reuters it wasn’t aware of any threats made against her by Trump supporters.

Trump also has gone after lesser-known state and local officials.

Rusty Bowers, a conservative Republican who was speaker of Arizona’s House of Representatives, refused to overturn Biden’s narrow 2020 win in the state. Local party members called him a traitor, threatening messages flooded his office, and a man with a pistol turned up at his home, Bowers said in an interview. Trump blasted Bowers as “weak” and “wrong on everything,” and he backed a Republican rival in a 2022 state senate race.

Bowers lost but the rancor endured. “I have been neutralized in their mind,” he said, referring to Trump’s supporters. “I am not a factor.”

In the new Republican Party, grassroots supporters have taken it upon themselves to enforce loyalty to Trump by identifying and vilifying Republicans they see as out of step with the leader.

Matt Fogal, the Republican district attorney in Pennsylvania’s Franklin County until late last year, has the kind of pedigree that once made politicians hard to beat in the state’s conservative south-central region. He attended an evangelical church and served in the National Guard with deployments in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Fogal became district attorney in 2009. He ran uncontested three times, in a county where Trump won more than 70% of the vote in 2016 and 2020.

When Trump became president, Fogal disagreed with his comments denigrating immigrants, Muslims and women. But he kept his views to himself. He told himself the country would survive the next four years and then mend any damage caused by Trump, he said. But in May 2020, as racial justice protests swept the nation after the police killing of George Floyd, Fogal publicly broke with Trump.

As protesters against police brutality and racism rallied peacefully in heavily white Franklin County, Fogal issued a statement praising their “positive spirit of change and equality.” He also criticized Trump for authorizing the National Guard to use force on protesters in Washington.

Trump supporters – and some police officers – swiftly condemned him.

Fogal met with local law enforcement to explain his stance. At one meeting, an officer accused him of being “a Marxist,” he said. At a local church, the pastor demanded to know if he supported looters and rioters, Fogal recalled. His wife, a beautician, lost customers. Some relatives stopped talking to him, he said. The local Republican Party denounced him.

Fogal struggled to understand how he’d misread his own community. “It was the first time I had seen this kind of worship and idolatry, the way they talked about Trump,” he said.

That September, already disowned by Republicans, Fogal endorsed Biden in the 2020 election. After the Capitol riots, he announced he had registered as an independent. Although he hadn’t received death threats, police officers he considered his friends told him he should carry a gun “in case someone did something stupid,” he said.

As the end of his term approached and he sought work in the private sector, Fogal discovered he wasn’t welcome at local law firms. Some told him “he was too hot to handle,” he said.

Last October, he found a job as a lawyer with the Pennsylvania governor’s general counsel office and resigned as district attorney. But he said many in his home town haven’t forgiven him.

“I’m quite literally a pariah,” he said. “Things used to be different here.”