Barely 48 hours into the new year, the United States found itself at the center of two violent incidents, a dark prelude to what many fear could be a turbulent year ahead.
The first tragedy occurred in the early hours of New Year’s Day in New Orleans, where suspect and Army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar deliberately drove a pickup truck through a crowd before opening fire on Bourbon Street, killing 15 people and leaving dozens wounded.
The pickup truck used to drive into a New Orleans crowd early on New Year’s Day, killing 15 people and wounding dozens of others
Later that day, active-duty U.S. Army Green Beret Matthew Livelsberger killed himself and injured seven others in a Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas.
President-elect Donald Trump and right-wing media wasted no time blaming it all on President Joe Biden’s immigration policy, touting lies that the New Orleans attacker was an illegal immigrant despite having been born in Texas.
Trump, who has a long history of spewing anti-immigrant and xenophobic rhetoric, used his platform to reiterate his claims and rally his base.
“When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true,” he wrote on Truth Social.
In a subsequent post, he said, “Our Country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World! This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective, and virtually nonexistent leadership. The DOJ, FBI, and Democrat state and local prosecutors have not done their job. They are incompetent and corrupt, having spent all of their waking hours unlawfully attacking their political opponent, ME, rather than focusing on protecting Americans from the outside and inside violent SCUM that has infiltrated all aspects of our government, and our Nation itself.”
An investigation of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day
The Tesla Cybertruck explosion has also sparked questions about potential political messaging. The Daily Beast reported that Livelsberger was a “big” supporter of Trump and voted for him in the 2024 election. The involvement of a vehicle from Tesla, which is owned by Trump ally Elon Musk, raised eyebrows, especially given Musk’s status as a major financial backer of Trump’s campaign and now co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency.
On Thursday, the FBI said on X that it was “conducting law enforcement activity” related to the Cybertruck explosion from a home in Colorado Springs, and Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill said it was likely a suicide.
The timing of these events is akin to disturbing new trends in U.S. politics. A recent Public Religion Research Institute survey found that the majority of people who support political violence were Republicans, and that they were more likely to consume conservative media, particularly Fox News.
Political violence is on the rise, with 300 cases since 2021—at least 51 of which occurred in 2024, according to a Reuters analysis.
Meanwhile, Trump has announced that he is holding a rally at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 19—one day ahead of his inauguration and just over four years since his last D.C. rally, which incited a deadly insurrection in the U.S. Capitol. What could go wrong?
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