COLORADO, USA — The Colorado Supreme Court Justices who ruled Donald Trump is an insurrectionist who should be barred from the ballot are now receiving a flood of violent threats on social media, according to a 45-page report cited by NBC News.
Advance Democracy, a non-partisan, nonprofit research group, tracked "significant violent rhetoric" since yesterday's court decision.
The group found social media users threatening to kill the justices on Colorado's highest court and Democrats – some users posting the justices' phone numbers and addresses to their offices.
The group conducts public interest research and found the "violent rhetoric" was often found in direct response to posts about the court's ruling made by Trump on his platform Truth Social.
The social media platforms X, Patriots.win, Telegram, 8kun, Gab, Gettr, 4chan and Truth Social were monitored by the group for content.
"Civil War" and "Insurrection" were found to be trending on X by the group. They also found that the top two posts include the Colorado court's decision and on Truth Social, "#Colorado" is trending.
> Watch video above that aired on Dec. 20: Legal expert weighs in after Trump barred from Colorado ballot
Some of the violent rhetoric on the social media sites include, “ARM UP. STOCKPILE HOLLOWPOINTS. SHOOT EVERY SINGLE DEMOKKKRAT ON SIGHT. WIPE THEM ALL OUT,” and “If you live in Colorado, do what the founding fathers ACTUALLY would want. Grab your rifles and some rope.”
The group noted that Trump has posted 22 times about the court ruling on Truth Social where "some users responded directly to Trump’s posts with violent rhetoric and calls for violence, including the hanging of the Colorado Supreme Court justices."
The group's president, Daniel J. Jones, said when they compiled the report the consistency of the violent threats and rhetoric was especially concerning.
He told NBC News, "The normalization of this type of violent rhetoric — and lack of remedial action by social media entities — is cause for significant concern. Trump’s statements, which have sought to delegitimize and politicize the actions of the courts, is serving as a key driver of the violent rhetoric. Political leaders on both sides of the political aisle need to speak out against these calls for violence, and social media platforms need to reassess their role in hosting and promoting this rhetoric.”
The Colorado court's decision to ban the former president from the ballot doesn't kick in until the day before primary ballots are printed and won't happen if the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the case first.
The Trump campaign said Tuesday night they planned to quickly appeal the decision.
The Colorado Republican Party said if Trump is knocked off the primary ballot they plan to cancel the primary altogether.
"If they're able to successfully remove Donald Trump from the ballot, for example, or they're successfully able to keep engaging in some of the blatant election-fraud type behavior that they've done, then, pretty soon you're not going to be able to resolve your differences through the ballot box," said Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams on the Liberty Roundtable Podcast. "It will be done, you know, in a civil war, and we don't want that, no one wants a civil war. I think most of us are capable of figuring out ways to avoid those things, but there's only so much you can do if those who are in power, keep undermining free and fair elections."
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