Are the Proud Boys Done or Are They Just Getting Started?
Over the past year, the extremist, far-right group the Proud Boys has undergone what appears to have been a dramatic implosion. Gavin McInnes, the group’s bombastic, ironically mustachioed founder (and the co-founder of Vice magazine), resigned late last year. More recently, the group was one of the targets of social media platforms’ efforts to combat hate speech; mainstream sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook banned a number of Proud Boys-related accounts, thus significantly curbing its ability to attract new recruits. The embarrassing leak of a sloppily redacted Proud Boys charter, written by attorney and member Jason Van Dyke, only served to further heighten tensions within the group, leading to members jockeying for power.
For a few months, it seemed as if the Proud Boys were set to be relegated to little more than a footnote in history, yet another extremist group undone by petty squabbling and internecine bullshit. And then, on June 29th, something shifted. Andy Ngo, a self-styled journalist-activist and far-right provocateur, tweeted that he had just been violently assaulted by “antifa,” or anti-fascist protesters, at a Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer rally in Portland, Oregon. “Attacked by antifa. Bleeding,” he wrote. “They stole my camera equipment. No police until after.” He also retweeted a report from the Portland police force alleging that the counterprotesters had dumped a quick-drying cement milkshake on activists’ heads. (This claim turned out to be untrue; the milkshake was actually made of coconut milk.)
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It didn’t matter that the claim turned out to be untrue, and that the beverages in question were actually vegan treats; nor did it matter that Ngo, as a BuzzFeed profile of him later argued, has built a successful freelance journalist career on the demonization of leftist activists. Immediately, parties on both sides of the political aisle condemned the attack on Ngo and called for the anti-fascist protesters, or antifa, to be held accountable. (Ultimately, three counterprotesters at the rally were arrested; one was charged with assault, while the other two were charged with disorderly conduct and harassment.) President Donald Trump, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, and even Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden unequivocally condemned the attack. Last month, Cruz called for the FBI to investigate antifa during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, in so doing comparing them to the KKK. And following the El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, shootings, President Trump issued a statement saying he was “concerned about the rise of any group of hate … whether it’s white supremacy, whether it’s any other kind of supremacy, whether it’s antifa, whether it’s any group of hate” — the last part an allusion to the Dayton shooter, whose apparent leftist leanings on Twitter immediately prompted the far right to link the attack to antifa.
The assault on Ngo, combined with the push toward the demonization of antifa in general, has been galvanizing for the Proud Boys. Members of the organization, communicating largely through the encrypted messaging app Telegram, saw it as exactly the boost that was needed. Much discussion focused on what could “be done” about antifa, juxtaposed with some “light fantasizing” about how other members of the Proud Boys would have defended themselves in that situation, according to Jared Holt, an investigative reporter at Right Wing Watch. “At least internally, the people in the organization really ratcheted up and energized,” he says. Now, as the Proud Boys gear up for another rally in Portland on Saturday, August 17th, all eyes are on the organization to see whether it will continue to disintegrate, or whether a push from mainstream establishment players will make it stronger.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/proud-boys-antifa-attack-trump-rally-2020-election-862538/