Story by ktangalakislippert@businessinsider.com (Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert)
- Politicians and judges are increasingly facing intimidation via "swatting" attacks.
- Swatting is when a person calls in a threat to prompt police to raid a target's home or workplace.
- Authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat told BI why swatting is indicative of democracy declining.
Elected officials across the political spectrum are facing increased swatting threats, phoned in from unknown perpetrators seeking to terrorize government workers, in what one expert in authoritarianism told Business Insider is evidence of our democracy declining.
Swatting is an intimidation and harassment tactic characterized by a person or multiple people acting together to report a false threat to law enforcement, such as a mass shooting or hostage situation, prompting police to forcefully raid a target's home or workplace to stop the imaginary crime.
Recent swatting calls targeting Republicans like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, as well as Democrats like Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Judge Arthur Engoron — who is overseeing the New York fraud case against Donald Trump — demonstrates a marked escalation in a trend experts have been warning about for years.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University and the author of "Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present," which examines how autocratic leaders stay in power by utilizing the power of corruption, violence, propaganda, and machismo. She told Business Insider that the increasing spate of swatting attempts is an intensification of anti-government extremism plaguing the country.
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