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MAGA Forum Freak Out: Chatter of a ‘Patriot Moat’ Around Mar-a-Lago to Keep Trump Out of Jail

Former President Trump Holds Rally In Support Of Wisconsin Candidates - Credit: Getty Images
Former President Trump Holds Rally In Support Of Wisconsin Candidates - Credit: Getty Images

Trump supporters on the online MAGA forum “The Donald” are coming unglued at the possibility of the former president’s impending indictment, going so far as to suggest that a “Civil War 2.0” may be imminent and proposing the formation of a “Patriot moat” to prevent law enforcement from arresting him.

“Surround Mar-a-Lago or wherever he currently is and prevent ‘law enforcement’ from entering,” one person wrote, per The Daily Beast.

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This prompted another to reply, “What if they use choppers to circumvent the Patriot moat?”

Still other supporters brought up the possibility of a civil war. “Well, looks like we may have WWIII and our 2nd Civil War at the same time,” one poster wrote, just one of many references to a potential civil war on the forum in the last two days.

“This should be treated as a declaration of war,” another posted.

Yet another Trump supporter wrote: “Looks like they are accelerating the civil war to this week. Hold the fuckin line guys. Don[‘]t be afraid to use your constitutional rights. Remember 2a is there incase 1a fails,” a reference to using weapons protected by the second amendment.

While these forums are full of bluster, it’s important to remember that many of the ideas floated in the forums of “The Donald” came to fruition during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, including the suggestion to erect a gallows on Capitol grounds. Posters in the lead up to Jan. 6 also exchanged travel tips for getting to D.C. and suggestions on how to bring weapons and ammunition into the District considering its gun-control laws.

“The website, TheDonald, played a far more central role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection than was previously known,” Daniel J. Jones, who worked as an FBI analyst and Senate investigator, told The Washington Post in April 2021. “There are thousands of posts — with tens of thousands of comments — detailing plans to travel to Washington and engage in violence against the U.S. Capitol. The ultimate end goal of this violence was, on behalf of Trump, disrupt the Congress and overturn the presidential election.”

Despite his supporters’ bluster, Trump’s attorney has said that the former president would cooperate with law enforcement and surrender if he is indicted. “There won’t be a standoff at Mar-a-Lago with Secret Service and the Manhattan DA’s office,” Joe Tacopina told The New York Daily News on Friday.

Trump himself, however, called for his supporters to “protest” en masse if he is arrested. “Protest, take our nation back!” he wrote in a post on Truth Social. It’s an eerie echo of Trump’s words during his speech Jan. 6, when he told the crowd, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” just before they attacked the Capitol.

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