Category Archives: Proud Boys

Editors Note: This story was first published on New Hampshire Bulletin.

Hate groups and right-wing extremists have made appearances in the increasingly angry fight in New Hampshire against vaccine mandates, mask policies, pandemic shutdowns, lessons on racism, unproven voter fraud, and even pronoun use. But the fight is being waged by your neighbors, not armed extremist groups in tactical gear.

Angry and frustrated teachers, parents, nurses, students, elected officials, and community members many whove never been politically engaged before are packing and often disrupting school and select board meetings across the state. And they are having an impact.

To go and voice your opinion to your public officials, that is how our republic functions, said Andrew Manuse, co-founder of RebuildNH, a group helping to organize many of the protests. Weve been clamoring for how many years that people are not showing up for elections and not showing up for public meetings? People who have never been involved before are getting involved. We would say thats a good thing, and it is.

Manuse encourages followers to do so civilly. Many do, like the hundreds who marched in Concord Saturday for medical freedom.

But many do not.

A long-serving Hollis selectman resigned last month after being heckled for wearing a mask to a meeting, even as he explained he did so to avoid passing COVID-19 to his 101-year-old mother-in-law and two medically compromised relatives. A state representative was sworn at and reported to House leadership after she took a picture of a protester who was recording video of her at a school board meeting.

Angry protesters shut down an Executive Council meeting last week where law enforcement escorted state employees to their cars. Some of the same angry protesters stopped the state Department of Health and Human Services from rewriting the vaccine registrys rules they believed expanded the states reach. Gov. Chris Sununu canceled a 603 Tour stop last month, citing a concern for attendees safety.

And while hate groups have made appearances Proud Boys have attended Nashuas school board meetings and armed members of the boogaloo movement were at a Concord rally against pandemic shutdowns it is local residents leading the fight.

Lorrie Carey, a Merrimack Valley School Board member who has held local elected and volunteer positions for 30 years, said she listened in disbelief at an August meeting as parents swore and yelled at board members during a mask policy discussion. The board canceled a meeting the next month and called for police backup when attendees who declined to wear masks also declined to watch the meeting from the cafeteria, a designated mask-free zone.

Our meetings have been the victim of politicization, Carey said. We have to consider the behavior of those who will attend. You have to think about, how will I get in or out of the meeting? Its like a time of war. I never thought Id see that in the United States of America.

New Hampshire is far from alone. Citing a spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against public school officials, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week said he has directed the FBI to meet with local officials to coordinate a response.

Sununu last week downplayed the protest that shut down the Executive Council meeting as an outlier event, but said the state has talked with members of school boards and selectboards about managing public discord at meetings. The New Hampshire School Boards Association also addressed those topics in training for school board members in September.

Weve been seeing the news about disruptions at school board meetings and certainly have received a number of inquiries, said Executive Director Barrett Christina.

Save for a disorderly conduct arrest of an anti-mask protester at a Timberlane School Board meeting in May, public anger has been loud and emotional but not physical or criminal. Though, some school districts, including Merrimack Valley and Merrimack, now have a police officer at meetings.

Asked if he fears protests, including those involving RebuildNH followers, will become violent, Manuse said, I dont want that and we made it pretty clear that we support civil protest. The groups goal, he said, is restoring state sovereignty and limiting government overreach.

Asked again to consider the possibility of anger escalating into violence, Manuse said people are going to get angrier the more pressure that is put on.

Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut said he believes contentious public comments at board meetings are slowing down, not escalating, as residents turn to another tool: petitions for special school district meetings.

I think as a result of COVID, there were pointed interactions between community and school boards, Edelblut said. And as a result of COVID, I think they might have been more widespread. I do think weve turned a corner.

Manuse disagrees.

I think you are going to see more anger the more people are pressured by losing their jobs over not taking the vaccine and having their kids be forced to wear masks, Manuse said. The people in government are going to attempt to use force against a population that is supposed to be free. I think, yes, youre going to see some more angry people.

Watch YouTube videos of September school and selectboard meetings and youll hear frustrated residents lined up at the microphone, telling elected officials they should be ashamed of themselves and voted out. A nurse from Londonderry grew frustrated in early September when her school board could not answer her questions about the schools COVID-19 testing policy. Her frustration turned to anger when one board member told her testing was happening all over the country.

I dont care, she said, adding, You should all be fired before taking her seat.

Rep. Rosemarie Rung, a Merrimack Democrat, attended her local school board meeting last month to encourage the adoption of a mask mandate given a recent increase in new infections. While there, she photographed a man who was recording video of her because, she said, she has been threatened in the past. Doing so upset many in the room and one man in particular who moved from his seat to one next to Rung, and by his own admission, gave her the middle finger.

In a complaint the man later filed to House leadership, he accused Rung of telling him he should be in a mental hospital for walking around without a mask and acting inappropriately by taking his photo. A true leader stands above the muck, not stirs it, he wrote in his complaint to House leadership.

In her response, Rung shared a text message she received during the meeting from another attendee who watched their interactions. Please have someone walk you out, it said.

It was definitely a mob mentality, Rung said. To me, this is beyond the facts or the issues of the COVID-19 vaccine, and its beyond mask mandates. I think the (level of) organization is just trying to disrupt democracy.

Rep. Kat McGhee, a Democrat from Hollis, is worried the angry attacks are going to discourage people from seeking office. She pointed to the September resignation of an 18-year veteran of the Hollis select board who was heckled for wearing a mask at a meeting. McGhee said she thinks organizations from outside the state are fueling the discord and fear here with misinformation about COVID-19 and other contentious topics.

Our local control relies on people of good will stepping up and volunteering in their communities, and thats whats under threat, she said. The majority of the public is blissfully unaware.

Simone Boodey, a private school teacher from Barrington, counted herself among them until August, when concerns about schools mask-optional policies prompted her to found NH Educators for Safe Schools. Membership in her Facebook group grew slowly until she made the group private, and just over a month in, she has about 240 members.

They have created this culture of intimidation, she said of those protesting what she sees as sensible COVID-19 safety protocols. People are not waking up very fast, and I was one of those people.

Her goal is to start a positive conversation that promotes public education and public health.

If we dont step forward soon, we are going to lose our state, she said.

She knows shes outnumbered as a one-woman show right now. Shes right.

RebuildNH, Manuses locally founded and run group, has had no trouble finding supporters. Within hours last month, it persuaded more than 250 people to write letters to the Department of Health and Human Services objecting to the states proposed changes to the vaccine registry access and the opt-in and opt-out processes. (The department announced Monday it was abandoning those rule changes for now.) Even more people have signed on to a petition against the $27 million in federal funding, believing the contracts will cede the states constitutional authority to the federal government. The Attorney Generals Office is reviewing the contract language at Sununus request. Elected officials whove received emails from the groups members describe them as personal notes, not form letters.

The group is working closely with Health Freedom New Hampshire, which keeps a public calendar of school board meetings across the state with notes about pertinent masking or other COVID-19 related agenda items. RebuildNH cross promotes those meetings, calling on all patriots to attend to protect our children, even if they dont live in the district. Most posts are viewed 400 to 500 times and often generate 20 or more comments.

When Merrimack School Board member Jenna Hardy asked in a Facebook post for reasonable people to attend a September school board meeting to give the loud minority a reality check, RebuildNH issued an alert in its online chat room. The reasonable people are trying to organize against all you loud, angry people who wont stand for systemic abuse of children, it said. Time to SHOW UP and show Ms. Hardy how angry you really are.

Hardy declined to comment prior to the meeting and did not attend, saying afterward that she had a prior commitment. RebuildNH, however, saw her absence as its victory: Jenna (Hardy) did not show up. That action by itself yells out that she was wrong for posting.

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'It's like a time of war': Public meetings throughout the state marked by anger and harassment - Valley News

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) The latest Florida defendant in the Jan. 6 insurrection is a retired Green Beret who spent 20 years in the military and ran for the Republican nomination in 2020 for the Congressional seat currently held by Kathy Castor.

Forty-seven-year-old Jeremy Brown was also featured in an Army Special Forces recruiting poster several years ago, but he now faces federal charges for forcing his way into the U.S. Capital to disrupt the validation of the presidential election.

Brown is charged with entering and remaining in a restricted building and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building. He also faces a federal firearms charge for possession of unregistered firearms two grenades, a short-barrel rifle and a sawed-off shotgun allegedly found in his Tampa home after a search on Sept. 30.

A local veteran who asked not to be identified, said he was one of Browns good friends shed some light on why the fellow veteran may have gotten involved with the Oath Keepers and the January assault.

I want to stop short of calling him a radicalized guy, he said. Hes mad at the government and feels like a lot of Americans, that freedom is diminishing.

Five people died during the assault, and several others were injured including 138 Capitol Police Officers.

Brown is the 69th Floridian arrested in connection with the insurrection. Thats about 10 percent of the 635 total arrests, according to stats compiled by George Washington University (GWU).

As many as 2,500 are suspected of breaching the Capitol.

Jon Lewis, a Research Fellow at the GWU Program on Extremism, said Floridas number one ranking in total arrests could change as more people are taken into custody. He said at this point, there could be another 1,500 to 2,000 additional suspects.

Cells of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have fed the high number of cases involving Floridians, Lewis said.

Lewis suspects the potential impact on the public in a state that is home to these cells would involve harassment through social media, flyers, false police reports and protests.

That could involve anyone who disagrees with their intended world view here, Lewis said. One step below what we think of as violent extremism.

In an interview earlier this year Brown said he was approached by the FBI in December and asked to infiltrate the Oath Keepers. Brown also has criticized the agency as the federal bureau of intimidation

Eight On Your Side reached out to Brown through his girlfriend, but he has not responded.

His friend said he hopes Brown is treated fairly.

This guy was in a recruiting poster. He is one of the most highly decorated soldiers out there, he said. I dont want to convict him in the court of public opinion.

The Oath Keepers have not responded to a number of requests for comment sent via email.

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Heres what we know about Green Beret, Tampa congressional candidate arrested in insurrection probe - WFLA

When former president Donald Trump told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by" during a debate last fall, it thrust the relatively unknown extremist group into the public consciousness and fueled a "massive spike" in members' activity.

"In the aftermath of that, suddenly everyone was talking about who the Proud Boys were and people were submitting applications to join the group," the Southern Poverty Law Center senior research analyst Cassie Miller toldNPRfor a story published Wednesday.

Hampton Stall, senior researcher with the Armed Conflict Location Event Data Project (ACLED), added: "The election period was a massive spike of Proud Boys activity in the street that honestly started right after that debate."

The ACLED found that between October and January, the Proud Boys "became visible to a degree previously unseen," appearing at more than 40 protests, demonstrations and riots. Many were Stop the Steal rallies that culminated in the Capitol insurrection and even Jan. 6-related conspiracy charges against 15 Proud Boys members have not resulted in a significant setback for the burgeoning organization.

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"They're simply switching up their organizational style," Miller told NPR. "Now they are organizing more at a local level, they're hosting local rallies, or they're joining into other rallies around political flashpoints like critical race theory or anti-masking. ... What they want to do is normalize their brand of politics, which is one that is authoritarian, that wants to push the creation of a more hierarchical society where men, and white men in particular, retain the most power."

The Proud Boys' new strategy has put them "firmly in the constellation of far-right causes that coalesced on America's streets over the summer." In August, more than half of events where Proud Boys were present turned violent, and the group is now pursuing "a deliberate strategy to forge alliances with disparate elements on the right."

"Trump's welcoming of the Proud Boys into his fold on a debate stage one year ago may have given them the legitimacy they sought," NPR reports. "But ultimately, Miller and Stall said the profound shift of America's political right suggests that the group has found firm footing among a more mainstream audience even with Trump out of office, and it won't be disappearing anytime soon."

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The Proud Boys have a new strategy: Going mainstream - Salon

Henry "Enrique" Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, holds a U.S. flag during a July protest in Miami as part of a show of solidarity for Cubans who were demonstrating against their government in Cuba. Eva Marie Uzcategui/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Henry "Enrique" Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, holds a U.S. flag during a July protest in Miami as part of a show of solidarity for Cubans who were demonstrating against their government in Cuba.

Cassie Miller recalls wondering if she misheard then-President Donald Trump during a contentious exchange in last year's first presidential debate.

Trump was asked to denounce far-right groups, including the Proud Boys a violent, all-male organization that Miller had been tracking for years as a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Trump responded by telling the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by." She knew that would thrust a relatively unknown extremist group into the American public's consciousness.

"In the aftermath of that, suddenly everyone was talking about who the Proud Boys were and people were submitting applications to join the group," said Miller.

The SPLC, which designates the Proud Boys a hate group, estimates that there are more than 40 chapters across the country, which operate semiautonomously.

Researchers say membership likely falls well below the 40,000 the Proud Boys have claimed, but they hesitate to venture any guess as to where it currently hovers. Nonetheless, many analysts say that the 12 months that followed Trump's notorious statement have, overall, been a period of growth for the Proud Boys.

"The election period was a massive spike of Proud Boys activity in the street that honestly started right after that debate," said Hampton Stall, senior researcher with the Armed Conflict Location Event Data Project (ACLED), a private group that collects information on violence worldwide.

ACLED data indicates that between October and January, the Proud Boys became visible to a degree previously unseen. In November alone, the tracking project found that members of the group made more than 40 outdoor appearances at activities such as protests, demonstrations and riots.

Often they were tied to "stop the steal" efforts. Miller said the coordination of these activities, from Georgia to Michigan and Colorado, helped boost the group's profile and build momentum. The momentum culminated in the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

But that event, which has so far led to charges of conspiracy against 15 Proud Boys, has not been the heavy blow to the organization that many expected.

Nor has the imprisonment of the Proud Boys' chairman, Henry "Enrique" Tarrio, who was revealed to be a federal informant. Tarrio recently began a five-month term in prison for burning a church's Black Lives Matter banner and bringing high-capacity firearm magazines into Washington, D.C.

"They're simply switching up their organizational style," said Miller. "Now they are organizing more at a local level, they're hosting local rallies, or they're joining into other rallies around political flashpoints like critical race theory or anti-masking."

This new strategy now situates the Proud Boys firmly in the constellation of far-right causes that coalesced on America's streets over the summer. According to ACLED data, August was particularly notable because nearly half of the events where Proud Boys were present turned violent.

Stall and Miller said the Proud Boys have moved beyond their singular focus on street fights against antifa activists, and they are now pursuing a deliberate strategy to forge alliances with disparate elements on the right.

Members of the group have attended anti-abortion "prayer" events with conservative Christian organizations; they've protested the removal of Confederate monuments in North Carolina; in Washington state, they responded to a false rumor that a student would be arrested for not wearing a mask, prompting the lockdown of three schools. Miller said these alliances should raise concerns.

"What they want to do is normalize their brand of politics, which is one that is authoritarian, that wants to push the creation of a more hierarchical society where men, and white men in particular, retain the most power," she said.

Miller said she already sees evidence that some Republican politicians have embraced the kind of violence and suppression of free speech championed by the Proud Boys.

She points to bills that were introduced in at least six states in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter rallies last summer that sought to give protection to drivers who run over protesters. She also noted that some GOP lawmakers, such as Arizona U.S. Sen. Paul Gosar, are increasingly using language about the possibility of war, revolution or violence.

Trump's welcoming of the Proud Boys into his fold on a debate stage one year ago may have given them the legitimacy they sought. But ultimately, Miller and Stall said the profound shift of America's political right suggests that the group has found firm footing among a more mainstream audience even with Trump out of office, and it won't be disappearing anytime soon.

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After Arrests And Setbacks, Far-Right Proud Boys Press New Ambitions - NPR

Far-right extremism, or white supremacy, is the fastest growing ideology in the United States. The impact of white supremacists terrorizing Black communities has led to calls for serious action, even an anti-lynching bill. This alone reflects how dangerous they are.

Add to that the January 6 insurrection and the evidenced involvement of the Proud Boys, and other groups, leading to the FBI describing the attack on the United States Capitol as an act of domestic terror.

A mountain of evidence suggests that, just as Canada did (and as I've written previously for the Editorial Board), the United States should follow suit and list the Proud Boys (and others) as domestic terror groups, as part of its initiative to tackle white supremacy.

But that hasn't happened. Failure means the problem persists with the potential to worsen. The safety of Black people and people of color, and the internal security of the United States, depends on such a bold move happening. The failure to treat the Proud Boys as they should be by the federal authorities is continuing to have consequences.

Indeed, a couple of things have taken place recently that have once again brought this worrying reality into sharp focus. First, the clashes several weeks back between the Proud Boys and anti-fascists.

The scenes in Portland, Oregon, turned ugly, but thankfully nobody was killed. Here's the thing that's alarming. Prior to the Proud Boy protest and the counter demonstration, Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell publicly announced that officers would not intervene. The Proud Boys are a threat, but here they were treated with kid gloves.

The lack of policing means that an approach of doubling down will be needed the next time the Proud Boys appear. Because the calculated failure to leave them to their own devices in the streets is akin to Trump's message. It's extremely dangerous, and dare I suggest, not how millions of Americans want their tax dollars spent with policing. Surely, those Proud Boys who watched events unfold in Portland at home on the TV will be salivating at the prospect of the next protest.

The plot thickens even further.

Just days ago, a judge ruled that prosecutors in the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the Kenosha shooter who shot three people at a protest against police brutality in 2020, will not be able to play for jurors a video of Rittenhouse allegedly stating his desire to shoot people while agreeing with the Proud Boys' tactics. The news is another example of how dangerous the Proud Boys and their ilk have become.

They can terrorize the Capitol, greenlighted by the former president, and, others would argue, in the streets, allowed to do so by a police chief in Portland. Apparently the Proud Boys were allowed to post banners around the city before the violence took place.

Their white supremacist ideology is something the likes of Kyle Rittenhouse was sympathetic to. How many more like Rittenhouse are on the sideline, "standing by" for their chance, brainwashed by the nonsense of the Proud Boys? It doesn't bear thinking about.

In recent days, the Times reported that a member of the Proud Boys who was present and took part in the insurrection was also an FBI informant and was texting his contact throughout the day.

That the FBI remained in contact suggests that law enforcement were more informed about imminent violence than previously suggested. One thing is clear by now. Law enforcement have more than enough evidence and knowledge, and means, as do the FBI, to halt the Proud Boys in their tracks before they carry out further serious crimes.

Trump was a dream come true for the Proud Boys. God only knows what messaging he might have continued giving to white supremacist groups had he secured another term. Biden needs to now break up the dangerous groundwork that was laid for groups like them. And ordinary Americans need to push him. The safety of tax-paying Americans, and American democracy itself, is depending on it.

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The government's disturbing treatment of the Proud Boys is a clear and present danger - Raw Story

An accused white supremacist who called for a race-based civil war online to thousands of his followers was sentenced Tuesday to nearly three and a half years in prison on multiple firearms offenses.

Paul Nicholas Miller, 33, sobbed in court as a judge sentenced him to 41 months in prison.

His imprisonment will be followed by three years of supervised release for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon in 2018, possessing ammunition as a convicted felon in 2021, and possessing an unregistered short-barreled rifle in 2021, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida said.

Paul N. Miller

Earlier this year, feds raided Miller's Fort Lauderdale home and discovered an unregistered short-barreled rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition inside.

"Miller admitted that he had bought the ammunition and that he had tried to build his own rifle in part to learn about firearms manufacturing in preparation for a coming civil war," prosecutors said in a news release. "In the months immediately before his arrest, Miller had made hundreds of internet posts publicizing his animosity towards various minority groups and his support for the initiation of a race-based civil war in the United States."

Paul Miller, the man who was arrested during a raid in Fort Lauderdale, faced a federal judge in court. NBC 6's Willard Shepard reports

Investigators were suspicious of Miller's social media activity, connecting him as being sympathetic toward and affiliated with the extreme right-wing group the Proud Boys.

Prosecutors portrayed Miller as a man with a large following on social media who spread hate encouraged 42,000 of his followers to spread hate too. Miller regularly used racial slurs and jokes while dressed as comic book characters, including The Joker.

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Accused White Supremacist Sentenced to Prison on Firearms Offenses - NBC 6 South Florida

On Jan. 6, a mob of around 800 people who were composed of 93 percent white and 86 percent male entered the United States Capitol in support of Donald Trump.

Assumptions have been made about who these people were. One such assumption has been that the rioters were predominately right-wing militia groups, such as Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters. Another assumption is that rioters came from Red States and predominately rural counties. Some have suggested many were unemployed, lonely and isolated.

These assumptions are incorrect. Robert A. Pape, a political scientist professor at the University of Chicago and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, has done extensive research on the people who were arrested after Jan. 6.

He writes that a closer look at the people suspected of taking part in the insurrection suggests a different and potentially far more dangerous problem: a new kind of violent mass movement in which normal Trump supporters middle class and, in many cases, middle-aged people without obvious ties to the far right joined with extremists in an attempt to overturn a presidential election.

I have seen Robert Pape being interviewed on Amapour and Company and I have read some of his articles on the subject. Fascinated by his findings, I will attempt to write about his analysis for this column, and if you are not familiar with his research, you, too, may find the following summary interesting.

Twenty researchers with the Chicago Project on Security and Threats worked with court records, analyzed the demographics and home county charac-teristics, socioeconomic traits, any militant group ties, prior criminal complaints, statement of facts, affidavits and media coverage of about 400 hundred Americans from 250 counties in 44 states, who were arrested or charged in the Capitol attack.

Pape and associates believed that a fine-grained comprehension of who attacked the Capitol, their beliefs, ideology and what kind of people they are and what their lives are like are crucial if we want to separate fact from fiction.

In an article The Capitol Rioters Arent Like Other Extremists in the Atlantic magazine Pape writes that four major findings stand out.

First: The overwhelming reason for action, cited again and again in court documents, was that arrestees were following Trumps orders to keep Congress from certi-fying Joe Biden as the presidential-election nom-inee.

In an interview with the FBI, a 37-year-old man from California said he was incredibly proud to be a patriot todayto support Trump and #MAGA forever and send the message: WE ARE NEVER CONCED-ING A STOLEN ELECTION.

Second: as already noted most rioters had no affiliation with far-right militias or white nationalist groups. Pape reports: Twenty of the Capitol arrestees we studied one 10th can be classified as supporters of gangs, militias or militia-like groups such as Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters.

Third: the average age of the arrestees was 40 years old. Of interest, 45 percent are business owners or hold white collar jobs; many of the alleged participants in the Capitol riot work as CEOs, shop owners, doctors, lawyers, IT specialists, accountants and one worked for the state department. These people had a lot to lose; but their outrage was palpable as indicated by camera footage. Only 25 percent were unemployed. A third had military training with expert knowledge in the use of weapons and military strategies.

Fourth: most did not come from rural areas. Of those arrested more than half came from counties that Biden won; one-sixth came from counties Trump won with less that 60 percent of the vote.

A third of suspected insurrections came from counties with large metropolitan areas, such as Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago and New York City, and another third from the outskirts of large metro areas.

If you presume that only the reddest parts of America produce potential insurrectionists, you would be incorrect, Pape said.

In a Washington Post column, Pape concludes that there is one overwhelming driver that led to the Jan. 6 riots: fear of the Great Replacement. Great Replacement theory holds that minorities are gradually replacing white populations due to mass immigration policies and low birth rates.

Replacement theory might help explain why such a high percentage of the rioters hail from counties with fast-rising, non-white populations. Many came from counties that Biden won handily which suggest there was a substantial number of non-white voters.

His report shows another disturbing result: 4 percent of Americans would resort to violent protests. That means 10 million Americans might participate in acts of violence in one form or another. This does not account for the millions who are not willing to participate in violence but believe in the so-called election steal. They are more passive. But if persuaded, they could join the ranks of the more militant.

Pape and his researchers present their work to drive home the necessity for law enforcement and all of us to recognize that there are many Americans willing to resort to violence against other Americans.

The research teams inference that the fear of the Great Replacement was the driving force of the riots seemed plausible but, in my view, was not confirmed by direct evidence. Still, it provides food for thought.

How does the report affect me, a white American? I am saddened that the United States is a deeply divided country. Not a day goes by that I dont experience an us versus them thought. This flame is fanned by cable news and the broadcasting of falsehood and misinformation by various political outlets. Even some of the Letters to the Editor in The Transyl-vania Times leave me asking. How could people think this way?

Also, as a white American do I have a fear of the Great Replacement namely that the rights of Blacks and Latinos are outpacing those of whites? Occasionally, there is a flutter of fear but that is not long-lasting. My more reasoned self knows that for too long the rights of people of color have been repressed. Even if I felt nostalgia when the statue of Robert E. Lee was removed in Richmond, I can understand how that statue and my position may be taken as offensive.

I also believe that a bedrock of democracy is an ability to promote our common welfare. Entrenched rage and animosity toward fellow Americans means other less polarized countries will outpace us, leading to more discontent. Incivility of discourse escalating into violence promotes division and hinders progress.

Finally, the study by the Chicago Project of Security and Threats helps me recognize that resistance to the advancement of minorities is based on fear. Fear is not objective reality. This invites those of us who are white to address our personal fear and to question whether our fear of replacement needs to govern our outrage.

We are in a time of flux and change. Let us help each other toward the common good.

(Dr John Campbell is a psychotherapist and past-oral counselor who practices in Brevard.)

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The Journey Inward Who Stormed The Capitol On Jan. 6, 2021? - The Transylvania Times

Two weekends ago, Trump loyalists gathered in Washington for the "Justice for J6" rally, a supposed show of solidaritywith the "political prisoners" arrested for their alleged (or confessed) participation in the Jan. 6Capitol attack.

Trump'sRepublican-fascistsand theirpropagandists have elevated these hooligans, vandals and (in many cases)terrorists to the status of martyrsand patriotsas a way of legitimizing their anti-democraticmovement, creating sympathy among Trump's faithful that can be exploited forfundraising and, of course, recruiting and encouraging more extremists to the cause.

Despite warnings from the Capitol Police, DHS and other authorities that more violence was possible, the rally on Sept. 18 was a tame and peaceful affair. No more than a few hundred Trump cultists attended,greatly outnumbered by law enforcement andthe news media. This low turnout was widely mockedamong the chattering class, liberals andprogressives ofthe "resistance"and others who opposeTrump and his movement.

As I have argued before, such reactions are shortsighted and ill-advised anotherexample among many of the way America's political class, news mediaand the public at large still does not understand the nature of the threat theyfacefrom the Republican-fascist movementand the larger white right.

Experts on domestic terrorism have repeatedly warned that in the aftermath of Jan. 6 many militant Trumpists and other neofascists are operating more covertly, perhaps by breaking up into small cells that aredifficult for law enforcement to track and apprehend. Right-wing militants and terrorists are more likely to attack "soft targets" as opposed to widely publicized events and locations where law enforcement is sure to be present.

As seen in Michigan and elsewhere, right-wingmilitants are likely to focus their attention atthe state and local level where law enforcement assets are more porous and likely targets are, in general, more vulnerable to attack.

But in fact the real power of Jan. 6 andits aftermath is difficult to measure by such standards. Those events, and Republican efforts to rewrite the history of that day, haveincreasinglynormalized right-wing political violence as acceptable if not, in fact, a preferred and desired way of obtaining and keeping political power.

In keeping with Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels' "Big Lie" strategy, a large majority of Republican and Trump voters actually believe that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" from Donald Trump and, in effect, from them as well. Public opinion polls also show that a significant percentage of Republicans believe that the violence and coup attempt on Jan. 6 was a "patriotic" or at leastunderstandableaction that was necessaryto "defend" democracyand Trump's presidency.

On a daily basis, neofascist white supremacist opinion leaders and other propagandists on Fox News and across the right-wing propaganda echo chamber are radicalizing millions of white Americans. Most will not personallycommitacts of violence against nonwhites, Muslims, "radical socialist Democrats"andothers designated to be the enemy. But they are ever more likely to tolerate or condone such crimes.

Ultimately, fascism is a type of political and social poison which manifests as violence and other antisocial and anti-human behavior. New research by Robert Pape and the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats demonstrates how far thatpoisonhas spread among the American people.

In a newessay at The Conversation, Pape summarizes these findings, beginning with the most startling result:

We have found that 47 million American adults nearly 1 in 5 agree with the statement that "the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president." Of those, 21 million also agree that "use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency."

Our survey found that many of these 21 million people with insurrectionist sentiments have the capacity for violent mobilization. At least 7 million of them already own a gun, and at least 3 million have served in the U.S. military and so have lethal skills. Of those 21 million, 6 million said they supported right-wing militias and extremist groups, and 1 million said they are themselves or personally know a member of such a group, including the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

Only a small percentage of people who hold extremist views ever actually commit acts of violence, but our findings reveal how many Americans hold views that could turn them toward insurrection.

Pape's polling found that 9% of American adults agreed that"Use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency, while 25% agreed that"The 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president."

Pape reports a margin of error of 4 percentage points, meaning that the proportion of American adults who hold both those views is somewhere between 4% and 12%. "The best single figure," he writes, "is the middle of that range, 21 million."He continues:

People who said force is justified to restore Trump were consistent in their insurrectionist sentiments: Of them, 90% also see Biden as illegitimate, and 68% also think force may be needed to preserve America's traditional way of life.

In aninterview withthe CBS News podcast "Intelligence Matters," Pape further explainedwhat this new research reveals aboutthe relationship between the white supremacist "great replacement" theory,the QAnon cultand right-wing violence:

Sixty-three percent of the 21 million adamant insurrectionists in the country believe in the "Great Replacement," the idea that the rights of whites will be overtaken by the rights of Blacks and Hispanics. The second most important driver was a QAnon belief, where 53 percent of the 21 million believed that our government is run and controlled by a satanic cult of pedophiles. Those are the two radical beliefs that are really ... the key drivers of the insurrectionist sentiments in the country today.

Pape also soundedthe alarm about the prospects for right-wing political violence and terrorism in the months leading up to the 2022 midterm elections:

This is about, what are the prospects for other instances of collective violence, especially related to elections going forward?... I think that we need to be aware that we are moving into already a politically tumultuous 2022 election season just in the last month with the events in Afghanistan, which has created tremendous amount of anger in many of our military circles, military communities; with the new mandates for COVID, which President Biden has just announced, which are already generating tremendous pushback against the federal government. ... Weneed to understand the risks that that could break out into violence.

For all of these escalating warnings about the potential for serious right-wing political violence, America's political classremains largely unwilling to properly respond to the clear and present danger. Such an outcome is in part explained by the very language that is most often used in these discussions.

For example, "right-wing terrorism" or "right-wing extremism"is often presented in a race-neutral fashion.

A more accurate description would be to say "white right-wing terrorism" or "white supremacist violence." Similarly, the events of Jan. 6 could be described as a"white insurrection" or "white riot," which more clearlycaptures the role of race and racism in the violence of both that day and the Age of Trump as a whole.

To be clear, there are Black and brown people who belong to Trump's cult. Someare among his most militant supporters. Regardless of their skin color, such people are loyal to Whiteness as a social and political force. As such, Black and brown Trumpists and other neofascists want to access white power and white privilege for themselves.For them, the end goal is to somehow "earn" a type of transactionalhonorary whiteness.

Trumpism and other forms of American neofascism and racial authoritarianism are an extremepersonal and existential problem for nonwhite peopleand others who are marginalized as the Other. They are also a problem spawned by and of White America.

Until that distinction is internalized by America's elites, and widely accepted as common sense by the American people, neofascism will continue to gain momentum and the country's democracy crisis will continue to escalate towardfull-on disaster, from which no return to "normal" will be possible.America's past and America's present (again)runs along and through thecolor line.

Link:

White terror: Millions of Americans say they'd support violence to restore Trump to power - Salon

The public does not know the full story about the Capitol riot, according to a top confidant of former President Donald Trump.

Mark Meadows, former White House chief of staff when a throng of Trump supporters stormed their way into the U.S. Capitol complex on Jan. 6, made the comment responding to a new report about the presence of an FBI informant in the crowd.

"I can tell you that there is a whole lot that needs to come out," he told Newsmax host Steve Cortes on Tuesday.

Meadows declined to get into more specifics, acknowledging he has been subpoenaed, along with three other Trump administration aides, by the select House committee investigating the Capitol siege.

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The New York Times reported over the weekend that an informant embedded with the far-right Proud Boys texted an FBI handler during the Capitol riot, suggesting federal law enforcement had greater visibility into the assault on the complex than previously known.

Meadows said there was no conspiracy behind the Capitol riot, claiming investigators have found no evidence to support it. However, prosecutors have filed conspiracy charges against several members of the Proud Boys.

He also opined the Jan. 6 committee should call House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser to ask "why they were not willing to actually secure the perimeter when they were given information."

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Tags: News, Mark Meadows, Donald Trump, FBI, January 6 Commission, January 6, Congress

Original Author: Daniel Chaitin

Original Location: Mark Meadows on FBI informant in Capitol riot crowd: 'There is a whole lot that needs to come out'

Read more from the original source:

Mark Meadows on FBI informant in Capitol riot crowd: 'There is a whole lot that needs to come out' - Yahoo News

As US troops withdrew from Afghanistan in August, Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked why the Taliban had won. The people of Afghanistan, he speculated to viewers, dont actually want gender studies symposia They dont hate their masculinity. They dont think its toxic. They like the patriarchy. What he called the neoliberal programme of equal rights was grotesque, contrary to human nature, and answered none of our deepest human desires. He added, almost wistfully: so now theyre getting it all back.

Carlson is only the most prominent voice blaming Americas decline on sexual liberalism. On the alt-right forum Gab, users agree that the US lost its war in Central Asia because it was no longer the same country that invaded in 2001 a Christian nation that outlawed gay marriage, considered trans people mentally ill and banned gays from the military. Memes by Taliban supporters around the world adopt a strikingly similar attitude, depicting Islam as a defender of the patriarchal family against gay rights, feminism and other woke ideologies.

[see also: The Taliban has taken lessons from the global jihadist movement]

The alt-right is jubilant over the Talibans return to power because it is a sign that sexual liberalism has been defeated. A post on the Telegram service run by supporters of the neofascist group Proud Boys praised the Taliban for taking their nation back from globohomo. They were referring to a supposed Globalist-Homosexual agenda, an alleged left-wing conspiracy to destroy white men. This meme was also cited by the perpetrator of a ghastly massacre at two mosques in New Zealand in 2019.

The global far right is saturated with theories of sexual evil. For incels (the involuntary celibate movement), the erotically successful American caricatured as Chad, Stacy and Tyrone enjoys a sexual despotism over lonely single men. The far right also obsesses over treacherous Muslims luring Hindu girls to embrace Islam what Hindu nationalists call love jihad. It is consumed by conspiracy theories around leftist paedophiles, child sex trafficking across continents, through the Vatican, and underneath the cover of charities and child protective services (as a QAnon bestseller puts it), gender ideology out to destroy the innocence of our children, and fake reports of gay kits in Brazilian schools featuring baby-bottles with penis-shaped teats. These fantasies usually come with an apocalyptic impulse that licenses extreme violence, from vigilante episodes, to mob violence and state repression in India, to incel massacres across the US and now Britain in August this year, a gunman linked to the incel movement shot and killed five others and then himself.

[see also: Why the Plymouth shooting was preventable]

The new far right is particularly galvanised by a conspiracy theory which believes that gender ideology is destroying civilisation. From the Catholic right in Poland to evangelicals in Brazil, reactionaries have declared gender ideology a Marxist-inspired attack on traditional male and female sex roles. This fight has been the symbolic glue, as the gender studies scholar Andrea Pet put it, cementing together religious rightists, secular nationalists, militarists and fascists. In 2016, the alarm over gender ideology was even used by right-wingers to sink a peace deal between the Colombian government and the guerrilla Farc group, because it included LGBT rights. Whatever the issue, deviant sexuality acts as a node in which all kinds of fear and loathing gather and are raised to boiling point.

Frequently, these sexual terrors fuse in volatile ways. This summer, violent protests erupted in the streets of Los Angeles after a video was circulated on social media showing a woman complaining about a man with a penis in the womens section of the Wi Spa in the city. The man had allegedly exposed her penis to the other women and young little girls underage. When another customer suggested that the man might be a trans woman, she said there is no such thing as transgender. According to Americas moral panic about trans people, laws allowing trans women to access womens spaces gives perverts and paedophiles complete licence to act on their desires. This is the strategy of homophobes who have historically linked gay men to paedophilia, while also leveraging the American tradition of moral panic over predators.

The video was amplified by rightist websites such as Breitbart and the Blaze, and by Fox Newss Tucker Carlson. A protest, advertised as the Wi Spa Anti-Pervert Protest, drew in the notoriously thuggish Proud Boys. Arrest all the pedos, protest signs said. Others bore the QAnon slogan, save our children. In a bonus for the entrepreneurs of sex panic, it was later reported that the trans woman in question has a history of indecent exposure. However, the transphobic backlash had no more waited for this revelation than it will now judiciously weigh its conclusions based on the evidence. Nor did it conceal its hostility to trans people as figures of deviant sexuality.

[see also: The symbolic politics of Judith Butler are all very well, but sometimes reality interjects]

What does this new far right actually want? Why does neofascism put so much emphasis on regimenting sexuality? Is it a matter of male entitlement, as most analyses of the incel movement argue? Is this a movement of straight white men restoring their traditional privileges? Up to a point. Women want to be conquered, the alt-right activist Markus Willinger writes. Men want to win a woman who is worth the effort a beautiful princess not a scowling feminist or a jutting man-jaw. The TradWife fetish, celebrating submissive femininity, instantiates this ideal. There is also some evidence that alt-right attitudes find their strongest base among men who have been divorced by their wives.

However, there are problems with this picture. As the political scientist Robyn Marasco argues, contemporary fascism offers women access to exactly the sort of transgressive destructive impulses and antisocial forces that the 20th-century Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich argued were typical of fascism. Women have long been important organisers in far-right movements. But whereas traditional conservative antifeminism offered women the security of patriarchal control, todays fascism offers women celebrity, prestige, and even the chance to become martyrs, as when former Air Force officer Ashli Babbitt was shot by a plain clothes police officer as she tried to storm the Capitol building on 6 January. There, in the mob violence incited by Donald Trump, women fully participated in what Reich, writing in the 1930s, called the fascist amalgamation of rebellious emotions and reactionary social ideas, the mentality of she who is enslaved and craves authority and is at the same time rebellious.

Neofascism offers some gay men a similar depth-charge of transgressive violence. For example, the fascist writer Jack Donovan celebrates a version of what the radical conservative Hans Blher called the Mnnerbnde. As someone against gay identity rooted in a civilisation too complex, cosmopolitan, individualistic and disunited to sustain real manliness, Donovan enjoins a tribal, homosocial bonding he calls androphilia. The repudiation of violent masculinity, he insists, is the murder of male identity.

The core metaphysical obsession guiding this violence, as the sociologist Chetan Bhatt argues, is the fear of white extinction. Intellectuals of the far right draw a direct relationship between deviant sex and a threat to white men. The deconstruction of the European male, writes Swedish neofascist Daniel Friberg, is the sharp edge of the lefts project of destruction. He excoriates the ridiculous pseudoscience of gender studies as the latest weapon in this offensive. Following a similar logic, a series of governments, in Hungary, Romania and Brazil, have effectively banned gender studies. The French New Right propagandist Guillaume Faye agrees that European societies have been lured by leftist propaganda into sexual confusion by removing the supposedly traditional prohibition on homophilia, inter-ethnic unions, and legal homosexual unions: acts tantamount to ethno-masochism. He blames this for the decline in the European family and, concomitantly, the falling birth rate. In fact, the declining birth rate is part of a wider transition following a similar decline in death rates, but demographic obsessions haunt contemporary fascism. Its the birth rates, the Christchurch murderers manifesto insisted. Its the birth rates. Its the birth rates. White revival requires bringing sexuality under control.

Yet, buried in the obsession with demographics, is also a question of desire. In The Happiness Industry, the sociologist Will Davies defines modern depression as a generalised collapse of desire. Todays situation of anomie, characterised by loneliness, melancholia, declining sociability and a declining libido a spiritual and social crisis whose roots run deep into neoliberalism could be called a depression. As the historian Dagmar Herzog has shown, the Third Reich responded to a similar civilisational malaise with a programme of selective permissiveness. Liberating collective violence for Ayrans, it also relaxed the grip of Christian moralism, encouraged healthy (non-Jewish) sexuality, and promoted adolescent sex.

Writing in The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Wilhelm Reich argued that the fascist mentality thrived on the sexual repressiveness of the authoritarian family: but the Nazis relaxed such repression for some, as long as their sexuality was congruent with the social and political goals of the Third Reich. Given the secular decline of patriarchy, neofascism does not have this option. Rather, its call to white revivalism aims to restore sexual desire by reviving dying prohibitions. It offers to fulfil what Carlson called our deepest human desires by treating them as a desire for hierarchy and dominance. It caters to the desire to know ones place again.

Go here to read the rest:

Why the alt-right is obsessed with sexuality - New Statesman