Dangerous Speech and the 2024 U.S. Election: January Elections Brief

The Dangerous Speech Project is excited to share the first of our monthly reports on dangerous speech during the run-up to the 2024 U.S. election. Throughout the electoral campaign we are tracking speech that has the potential to encourage intergroup violence (i.e. dangerous speech) and reporting on new dangerous narratives as they take hold. Among other things, in this month’s report we discuss:

• Dangerous speech that capitalizes on the fentanyl crisis by falsely blaming it on undocumented migrants is proliferating. This rhetoric has the capacity to persuade people to accept increased levels of force at the southern border and puts immigrants who are already living in the country at risk.

• Influential right-wing speakers are pushing the narrative that President Biden is doing exactly what Democrats accuse former President Trump of – violating the U.S. Constitution, behaving like a dictator, and endangering democracy.

• Trans people continue to be the targets of dehumanizing speech, a hallmark of dangerous speech. This speech often weaves together religious and anti-trans discourse, including comments from politicians and other notable public figures comparing trans people to demons, imps, and aliens.

• There is an overarching trend of rhetoric that suggests a need for increased securitization and/or militarization (primarily at the state level). We see speech suggesting the need for arming the citizenry and mobilizing the national guard (at polling places and now, in Texas, to confront the Border Patrol). Taken alongside the other trends in speech targeting minoritized groups, we find this very concerning.