Experts say attack could fuel extremist recruitment for years
Overthrowing the government. Igniting a second Civil War. Banishing racial minorities, immigrants and Jews. Or simply sowing chaos in the streets.
The ragged camps of far-right groups and White nationalists emboldened under President Donald Trump long have nursed an overlapping list of hatreds and goals. But now they have been galvanized by the outgoing president’s false claims that the election was stolen from him — and by the violent attack on the nation’s Capitol that hundreds of them led in his name.
“The politicians who have lied, betrayed and sold out the American people for decades were forced to cower in fear and scatter like rats,” one group, known for pushing the worst anti-semitic tropes, commented on Twitter the day after the attack.
The Capitol riots served as a propaganda coup for the far right, and those who track hate groups say the attack is likely to join an extremist lexicon with Waco, Ruby Ridge and the Bundy occupation of an Oregon wildlife preserve in fueling recruitment and violence for years to come.
Even as dozens of rioters have been arrested, chat rooms and messaging apps where the far-right congregates are filled with celebrations and plans. An ideological jumble of hate groups and far-right agitators — the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, the Boogaloo movement and neo-nazis among them — now are discussing how to expand their rosters and whether to take to the streets again this weekend and this week to oppose the inauguration of Joe Biden.
Some, enraged by their failure to overturn the presidential election, have posted manuals on waging guerrilla warfare and building explosive devices.
Law enforcement officials have responded by beefing up security at airports and creating a militarized “green zone” in downtown Washington. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued an urgent warning that attackers could target federal buildings and public officials in the coming days, and at least 10 states have activated National Guard troops in their capital cities. Some states have canceled legislative activities this week because of the possibility of violence.
Purging extremist groups from mainstream social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter may have succeeded in disrupting their organizing, experts say, but such efforts have pushed them into tougher-to-track forms of communication, including encrypted apps that will make it harder to trace extremist activities.
“Destroying the platforms could lead to more violence,” said Mike Morris, the Colorado-based founder of Three Percent United Patriots, one of dozens of so-called “patriot” paramilitary groups. Morris said he does not support violence but warned that other groups might find more freedom to plot on encrypted platforms. Morris said his group lost its Facebook account this summer and recently was kicked off Mewe, one of several smaller platforms that have drawn denizens of the far right.
Since Jan. 6, dozens of new channels on secure-messaging apps have popped up devoted to Qanon, the far-right conspiracy theory that says Trump is fighting a cabal of Satanists and pedophiles.
Many militias have found thousands of new followers in darker corners of the internet, such as one Telegram channel run by the Proud Boys, a violent, far-right group, which more than doubled its followers, to more than 34,000 from 16,000.
“People saw what we can do. They know what’s up. They want in,” boasted one message on a Proud Boys Telegram channel last week.
Hate groups have been a staple of American life no matter who is in the White House. They have had natural foes when Democrats have held the presidency. Under Trump, they have had an ally.
The president echoed their demonization of immigrants and fears of gun seizures and pushed White grievance into the American mainstream.
Far-right groups were buoyed after Trump spoke of “very fine people on both sides” of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a White supremacist fatally ran over a peaceful counterprotester with his car. They saw a signal of support when Trump, during a presidential debate, told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”
Again and again last year, they seized on openings created by the pandemic and civil unrest.
Paramilitary groups echoing Trump’s calls for “law and order” showed up armed and outfitted in tactical gear at Black Lives Matter rallies in places like Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis. Right-wing protesters fought in the streets of Portland, Oregon, with left-wing activists. When a 17-year-old was charged with fatally shooting two people at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, armed groups and some conservatives rallied to his side.
Goaded by Trump’s calls to “liberate” Democratic-run states locked down by the coronavirus pandemic, far-right groups and rifle-toting extremists forged common cause with some mainstream Republicans upset with government limits on business and public life. In Michigan, armed gunmen stormed the statehouse in Lansing, and prosecutors charged 14 men, including some tied to an armed group called Wolverine Watchmen, with plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in response to lockdown measures she imposed.
It all culminated at the Stop the Steal rally at the nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6. As thousands of Trump supporters marched up the Mall, among them were adherents of White supremacist groups, insignia-wearing militia members and far-right Proud Boys.
Lindsay Schubiner, a program director at the Western States Center focused on countering White nationalism, said it has been frightening to watch the rise of far-right groups in recent years who pose dangers to people of color and LGBTQ communities. Without a major disruption, she expects the extremist groups to remain a risk to public safety and to the nation’s democracy for years to come.
“This isn’t something that can be put back in the bottle — at least not quickly or easily,” Schubiner said.
The attack on the Capitol was likely to become “a significant driver of violence for a diverse set of domestic violent extremists,” an array of government agencies said in a joint intelligence bulletin issued Wednesday. Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, said the far-right movement galvanized by Trump would outlast his presidency.
“I feel like the movement has surpassed the person,” Tarrio said. “He has created this movement that I don’t think anybody can stop. They can try to silence. They can try to deplatform. It’s just going to make it louder.”
“He (Donald Trump) has created this movement that I don’t think anybody can stop. They can try to silence. They can try to de-platform. It’s just going to make it louder.” — Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys extremist group