Ron Filipkowski twitter.
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A former Marine and prosecutor who monitors Trump's base online worries confrontations over race and gender education could endanger school-board members.
A criminal-defense attorney began tracking Donald Trump's base online before the 2020 election.
His monitoring has made him concerned about the safety of school-board members.
"I'm watching them post their home addresses online, their phone numbers," he told Insider.
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By then, he had tracked enough social-media posts from right-wing extremists in his spare time to see trouble ahead. He shared warnings on Twitter from the Proud Boys and one of the Oath Keepers who talked of "blood lust" on that day. The activity had picked up, he said, after President Donald Trump urged supporters on Twitter to be there.
"This is their Super Bowl," he tweeted about the Proud Boys on December 30, 2020.
Filipkowski, a former longtime Republican, began tracking extremists on social media before the 2020 election to help persuade moderates to vote for then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden over President Donald Trump. The former Marine and state and federal prosecutor still keeps a close eye on the far right, working with two researchers he keeps anonymous, monitoring livestreamed events, podcasts, radio broadcasts, social media, and dark chat rooms. Every day, he watches streamed video of the "War Room" podcast with Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist in the White House, whom Filipkowski describes as a "chaos agent."
All that work has left him with one main concern moving forward: the safety of school-board members. The cause for alarm goes beyond the rowdy protests at meetings across the country over mask mandates, COVID-19 policies, and race and gender education.
"I'm watching them post their home addresses online, their phone numbers," he told Insider of the school-board members' personal information.
Filipkowski is prolific on Twitter, but he shares only some of what he sees. The majority of it can't be shared because it includes "violence, conspiracies, you know, crazy theories," things that would get him barred from Twitter, he said.
You're like Inspector Clouseau'
Sometimes, his tweets include derisive commentary. For example, "The editor on this is going to have one of the most difficult jobs in America in 2022," he tweeted about GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert's forthcoming book.
Or he will post screenshots or videos, including one of a "guy screaming that if the LA City Council doesn't lift their mask mandate 'get your guns' because it's going to be 'civil war.'"
Filipkowski's Twitter account, which is followed by more than 263,000 people, is getting media attention, and he's been doing television interviews about his work.