Extremists eye state capitols, but divisions emerge
Josiah Colt was all bravado on his way to Washington this week to protest what he saw as a stolen election.
“Ready for any battle,” the Boise, Idaho, man wrote on Facebook after waking up in Memphis, Tennessee, to find that a “fellow patriot” had posted a photo of him clutching a handgun while sleeping. His friend wrote that Colt was “ready for the boogaloo,” a far-right term for a violent overthrow of government.
In a video he recorded Wednesday after storming the U.S. Capitol, Colt, 34, was breathless with excitement after sitting in what he believed was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s chair — actually the Senate chamber seat reserved for the vice president. He was later identified as the man jumping to the Senate floor from the gallery in a widely circulated photo.
But a short time after sitting in that chair, in agitated tones outside the ransacked building, he voiced misgivings.
“I’m sitting here, and I don’t know what to do,” Colt told his social media
followers on video. “I’m all over the news now, but like, I’m just like every single one of those people that was marching — a peaceful protest, came here to represent America. You know, I didn’t hurt anybody in there.”
Colt’s amalgam of swagger and regret reflects the dichotomy inside the insurrectionist movement that is newly emboldened after storming the Capitol on Wednesday, but is also fractured, in part, because of its leaders’ loose grip on reality. Hours after the freefor-all, extremists on the far right took to social media, urging the like-minded to bring the fight to state capitols nationwide. Calls came to arm themselves for an assault on Washington and state capitols on Jan. 17, and again in Washington two days later, before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
At the same time, insurrectionists posting on Parler and other social media seemed torn about whether to champion their sacking of the Capitol or blame it on antifa, one in a string of conspiracy theories the movement has embraced. Some adherents depicted Ashli Babbitt, the San Diego woman killed in the melee, as a martyr for the cause. Others suggested she was an antifa plant — and claimed that no Trump supporters were involved in the ransacking.
“For the core participants and members of the far right, this has been a great success. This has been a milestone in their fight against these windmills, these alleged enemies of America,” said Arie Kruglanski, a psychology professor at University of Maryland and an expert in extremism. “On the other hand, it’s going to discourage those who aren’t quite as committed.”
As the country struggles to understand what a day of political violence and home-grown extremism means for its future, supporters of a lame-duck president who once claimed to be united by patriotism find themselves divided by its meaning. Some view the day as the launch of a necessary revolt, with more to come — including the potential for more violence — while others, like Colt, show some signs of remorse.
In this multifactioned and increasingly radical political tribe, there is even a sense of betrayal that a crusade that seized on an agenda of conservative righteousness and law and order would turn to rioting and brute force. This comes despite months of clashes, attacks and domestic terror plots — including a plan to kidnap the governor of Michigan — that provided ample warning of what lay ahead.
“Radicalization is now the mainstream of American politics, and we do our country a disservice to understand it any other way,” said Eric Ward, an extremism expert with Southern Poverty Law Center and Western States Center. “It’s is no longer on the fringes of society.”
While many in this offensive still believe in election fraud, Wednesday’s events have left them disowning compatriots who ransacked, pillaged and injured dozens of law enforcement officers — including allegedly beating U.S. Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick with a fire extinguisher, resulting in his death — while still clinging to right-wing ideals.
Members of several farright groups, including the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters, were present. The name of rightwing YouTube channel Murder the Media was scrawled on a door of the Capitol during the siege. Federal authorities Friday announced charges against 13 of the rioters, and 40 more have been charged in Superior Court on counts including firearms-related offenses.