In western N.Y., far right courts skeptics

The Washington Post

The leader of a farright “patriot” group in western New York stood on top of a truck trailer speaking to a crowd of about a hundred people in a quiet suburb of Buffalo. They had gathered in June to support a Buffalo Bills player who had refused to take the coronavirus vaccine, even at the cost of his career. Charles Pellien, head of the New York Watchmen, spoke proudly of a constellation of groups coalescing around their shared beliefs.

“We’re all coming together,” Pellien said. “That’s why this crowd is so big.”

Far-right groups across the nation have aligned themselves with those opposed to masks and vaccines, seeking new allies around the issue of “medical freedom” while appearing to downplay their traditional focus on guns, belief in the tyranny of the federal government and calls by some for violent resistance.

Public health mandates and the push to vaccinate as many people as possible against COVID -19 have become animating issues for patriot groups, which have long held conspiratorial views of the federal government. The Watchmen and others say that official responses to the pandemic, both at the state and federal level, are a stark example of government overreach — an argument that helps them appeal to new potential supporters, analysts say.

“The New York Watchmen

uses this framing broadly to oppose things such as COVID -19 health safety measures, mask mandates, COVID -19 vaccinations,” said Susan Corke, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which monitors extremist groups. They “believe they are working to protect citizens’ constitutional rights from an ever overreaching government.”

At a moment when domestic extremism has been identified by the FBI as the major violent threat in the United States, researchers and health experts are increasingly concerned with the alliance forming nationwide between the radical right and vaccine hesitant populations. The New York Watchmen, which was founded by Pellien, a 56-year-old former police officer, emerged in reaction to the protests against police brutality around the country last summer. They have “some degree of military-type structure” and conduct firearms training, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Some members seem eager to engage in violence against antifascist counterprotesters.

Pellien did not respond to requests for comment. The Watchmen have also seized on the pandemic to gain new allies.

Nancie Orticelli, a local activist allied with the Watchmen, said the growing community in western New York now consisted of “small business owners, conservatives, libertarians, Republicans and Democrats who value their freedom.”