Early last year, as his legal troubles started to intensify, Donald Trump said that if he were to face charges, “I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had.”
Nine months later, the former president delivered a more ominous message, saying that if he were indicted, the United States would face “problems … the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen.”
The rhetoric turned into directives in the spring. In March, as the former president prepared for an indictment in New York, he turned to his social media platform, writing, “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” In case that was too subtle, Trump added a few hours later, “IT’S TIME!!! … WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE. … WE MUST SAVE AMERICA! PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!”
Though it seemed as if Trump envisioned mass groups of red-capped followers taking to the streets, those calls were largely ignored. Some supporters turned out in Manhattan around the time of his first arrest, but the gatherings were, by any fair measure, underwhelming duds.
Yesterday, as The New York Times reported, it happened again. After noting the high-profile Trump supporters who “called on supporters to rally to his side” — the former president himself wrote, “SEE YOU IN MIAMI ON TUESDAY!!!” late last week — the article added:








