Did Democrats Suggest Burning Down Trump Supporter's House? What We Know

A number of prominent conservative figures have accused Missouri Democrats of posting a tweet suggesting that the home of a Donald Trump supporter should be set on fire, before deleting the post.

Screenshots purported to show the tweet were widely shared, including by Donald Trump Jr., who claimed that the Missouri Democratic Party is "openly calling to burn down the homes of Trump supporters."

The controversy began when Jon Cooper, a prominent Democratic Party activist with more than 1.2 million Twitter followers, shared a photo of a two-story home decked out with more than a dozen Trump-supporting flags. He wrote: "What would you do if this was your next-door neighbor?"

The screenshots appear to show the tweet being shared by the official Missouri Democrats Twitter account, who add: "The roof, the roof is on [fire emoji] we don't need ne water, let the 'insert your word' burn!"

This seems to be a reference to the 1983 hip-hop song The Roof Is on Fire by Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three. The lyrics are: "The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire! We don't need no water, let the [expletive] burn!"

Newsweek has not been able to verify the authenticity of the tweet. The Missouri Democrats have been contacted by telephone, voicemail message and email asking if they tweeted, then later deleted, the message.

One screenshot of the tweet was posted by Trump Jr., who sarcastically wrote: "No big deal, just the official account of the Missouri Democrat Party openly calling to burn down the homes of Trump supporters."

Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who represents Missouri, shared the image and commented: "Here's the Missouri Democrat Party advocating for a Trump supporter's home to burn down. Sick. There's no place for this kind of disgusting, violent rhetoric in Missouri."

The screenshot was also shared by the Libs of TikTok Twitter account, which has more than 2.4 million followers. They said: "The official account of the Missouri Democratic Party expressing excitement about the possibility of a Trump supporter's house burning down."

There has been growing concern about political violence in the U.S. in recent years, in the context of heightened partisanship between Democrats and Republicans.

Polling by the Public Religion Research Institute, released in May 2021, found that 15 percent of Americans agreed with the statement that "because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country." This included 28 percent of Republican voters and 7 percent of Democrats.

On January 6, 2021, hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a bid to stop the verification of Joe Biden's 2020 presidential election victory. In the ensuing mayhem, one Trump supporter was shot dead by police, and dozens of officers were injured, before order was restored.

Two suspected arsonists set fire to themselves in January 2023 while attempting to torch an immigrant assistance business in California, with footage on the incident shared online.