This hot climate continued with the start of a new election four years later.

Former President Trump was the target of two assassination attempts, including one at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. caused the death of a man. Meanwhile, Trump’s warnings about the potential for election fraud and his language about immigration have increased threats against election workers and some immigrant communities.

The FBI warned local and state officials across the country in October in a bulletin obtained by WABE that extremists with election-related grievances could turn to violence in the coming weeks. The bureau called for increased measures against possible targets such as polling places and election offices.

“I think we’re better prepared this time because, I hate to say it, it’s outdated,” Sterling said in a recent interview. “What worries me is a new tactic.”

Sterling said law enforcement and election officials need to be vigilant to combat new strategies to disrupt the vote. At a security briefing, he recalled, law enforcement suggested parking cars near polling place windows.

“From where?” I said. Sterling explained. “To protect against bomb attack. “That’s the level we’re at right now on some of these things.”

Sterling said special election officials They are doing everything they can to ensure a smooth election and make voters feel safe voting. He also hopes to deliver a consistent message of fair elections, eventually breaking through the misinformation-ridden environment.

“It’s kind of like the end of ‘Mr. “Smith goes to Washington, sits there and goes rogue on the floor,” Sterling said, referring to the 1939 Frank Capra movie. “And finally the senators say there’s no way he’s still saying these things unless there’s some truth to what he’s saying.”

But this has not happened yet.

Trump has so far refused to say anything directly He will accept the results of this election and says he will only do so if it is a “fair, legal and good election.” He and his allies have already made false claims about election fraud, disaster relief and immigrants.

Jurors faced a downpour after a grand jury indicted Trump on charges that he tried to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. online threats.

Already Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has amplified the debunked story about a voting machine in Georgia switching votes for Trump into votes for Vice President Kamala Harris during early voting.

And in recent weeks, Trump-aligned members of the Georgia State Board of Elections rules passed This appeared to allow local election board members to vote against certifying the election results.

When a judge violated these rules, he received death threats online.

‘He has a big target on his back’

Four years ago, rumors of a stolen election helped Daryl Kidd travel to Washington, D.C., where a mob of Trump supporters was present on January 6, even though multiple audits and counts proved otherwise. He violently breached the Capitol.

Kidd, who wore a Trump Save America hat outside a Trump rally in Atlanta earlier this month, said he did not take part in any of the violence that day. But he had doubts about the 2020 election.

“I think it will be safer this time,” Kidd said. “I think it will be more protected in Georgia anyway.”

A controversial overhaul of Georgia election laws has given him some confidence. Kidd isn’t so sure about other states. He said he would not rule out protesting the result again.

Standing in line nearby, red-clad friends Tina McKay and Dorie Walters examine more recent political violence, namely the assassination attempts on Trump. They said these initiatives gave them pause about coming to the campaign rally, but not for long.

“I thought about it when it first happened, how scary it would be, but as soon as I got the ticket here I didn’t think twice about it,” McKay said. “I’m scared for him because I think he’s got a big target on his back,” Walters said.

The reasons behind the two assassination attempts remain unclear. Like other voters at the rally, Walters and McKay said they blamed Democrats, not Trump, for the rising political temperature.

Both campaigns described their opponents as serious threats to the country. But it is Trump who talks about exceeding Democratic norms and uses language filled with violent images, personal attacks and inflammatory claims. His own former chief of staff, John Kelly, called Trump a “fascist” in a statement published in The New York Times this week.

At his rally in Atlanta, Trump called on his supporters to help “defeat the enemy at every level.”

Some of his harshest rhetoric targeted immigrants. At a rally on Thursday, he accused Harris of an “invasion of criminal immigrants” and said the United States had become “a dumpster for the world.”

For Daniela Usurin, originally from Uruguayan, Trump’s tough stance is welcome.

Usurin said illegal immigration reflects negatively on immigrants like him. But Trump also made false claims about immigrants who are in the country legally. From the debate stage, it reinforced a false narrative that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, ate cats and dogs. The community was inundated with bomb threats.

“I can’t really say what the truth is when it comes to these issues in Ohio,” Usurin said.

The truth is that city and state officials have debunked the allegations as false. But many at the Trump rally say they believe them, or at least the campaign’s description of the country facing an overrun of illegal immigrants.

Many immigrant communities are afraid.

‘This divides us even more’

recently As the Democratic campaign began at the Peachy Corners Cafe in the suburbs of Atlanta, Trump’s rhetoric was putting pressure on the many volunteers picking up campaign signs, Vietnamese coffee and bubble tea.

“This is unnecessarily dividing us further with untrue information and made-up stories,” said Tahmida Shamsuddin, who emigrated from Bangladesh two decades ago.

“And I have never felt less than because I came here, got an education, got a job, and became the contributing citizen I hoped to be. “This is personal and hurtful to me,” he said.

Wearing a Harris-Walz camouflage hat, Shamsuddin said that although he was committed to campaign work, knocking on strangers’ doors to talk about the election could create anxiety in this environment.

Located on a high hill next to the espresso machine, Tha Vin said he came to a quiet place to read his comics. But he said the language describing immigrants shapes the game.

“I’m a gun owner and I think I want to vote Republican,” Vin said. “But the rhetoric against immigrants made me want to vote Republican.”

Vin came to the United States in 1980 as a refugee from Cambodia. He said he was escaping an authoritarian regime. Protecting democracy is one of the main issues that motivates him.

Vin fondly remembers his family receiving a welcome basket within days of arriving in the United States. Now he feels that this spirit is extinguished. But he said the political climate made him more determined to vote. He is shuffling his schedule so that his son, nephew and nieces, who turned 18 this year, can go to the polls as a family.

“We want to make this a big deal,” he said. “I want us to vote symbolically, showing that we, as a family, are part of this country.”

Vin said he sees the game as more than just a presidential election. For him, it’s a way to assert that he belongs to the country that granted him asylum years ago.