Facts Don't Matter' Trump's Rhetoric Could Help Unleash Further Violence, Experts Warn

Even by Donald Trump's standards, the message was darkly apocalyptic - evoking memories of the infamous "American carnage" image he conjured at his first inaugural address eight years ago.

- Robert Tait

"The USA is breaking down," the president-elect intoned grimly in a message posted on his Truth Social platform at six minutes past midnight on 2 January.

"A violent erosion of Safety, National Security, and Democracy is taking place all across our Nation. Only strength and powerful leadership will stop it," he wrote.

The outpouring was triggered by the deadly New Year's Day attack in New Orleans' French Quarter that killed 14 - followed hours later by an apparently unconnected event outside Trump's hotel in Las Vegas, when a Tesla Cybertruck, built by the company owned by his biggest supporter and benefactor, Elon Musk, blew up.

Delivered just 18 days before his return to the White House, Trump's bleak prognosis seemed an ominous harbinger of counter-violence - especially when combined with his false accompanying message that the episodes confirmed his frequent warnings against open borders and illegal immigrants. Both perpetrators were American-born US citizens.

"It's about the most extreme language you can get when it comes to anti-immigrant comments," said Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, a group dedicated to tracking far-right movements.

"The attacks on immigrants, coming from Trump for a long time now, and inflamed by the situation where the person who did the [New Orleans] attack is not even an immigrant, are certainly going to raise the level of violence and attacks on immigrants in the country."

Brian Levin, a founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said Trump's comments following previous violent events had consistently fuelled an upsurge in hate crimes.