Experts: Riot product of years of hateful rhetoric
COLLEGE PARK, MD. » The storming of the U. S. Capitol is a jarring but natural product of years of violence and hateful rhetoric stoked by disinformation and conspiracy theories, experts on far-right extremism said as they pored over images of Wednesday’s riot.
Members of far- right groups, including the violent Proud Boys, joined the crowds that formed in Washington to cheer on President Donald Trump as he urged them to protest Congress’ counting of Electoral College votes confirming President- elect Joe Biden’s win. Then they headed to the Capitol. Members of smaller white supremacist and neo- Nazi groups also were spotted in the crowds. Police were photographed stopping a man identified as a leading promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory from storming the Senate floor.
Online forums popular
with Trump supporters lit up with gleeful posts about the chaotic scenes broadcast from the Capitol. Thousands of messages on Parler, a right-wing alternative to Twitter, included the hashtag #civilwar or other variations of the term.
“If you’re surprised, you
haven’t been paying attention,” said Integrity First for America executive director Amy Spitalnick. “We should all be horrified by this, but nobody should be surprised that this is happening.”
Spitalnick’s civil rights group is backing a federal lawsuit filed by victims of the
violence that erupted at the August 2017 white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left a counterprotester dead. One of the far-right fringe figures who had been listed as a speaker at the Charlottesville rally was livestreaming video of the Capitol me