Morning Briefing: Proud Boys Target LGBTIQ Events and School Board Meetings
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Morning Briefing: Proud Boys Target LGBTIQ Events and School Board Meetings
Members of the Proud Boys, the far right extremists street gang, continue to target LGBTIQ events and school board meetings from Ohio to California.
Morning Briefing: Members of the the far right extremists Proud Boys are “circulating notices encouraging people to protest a drag brunch” at Element 41, restaurant on Chardon Square in Chardon, Ohio, which is hosting a fundraiser the safe space program of the Community Church of Chesterland.
Jeffrey Perrine, an activists affiliated the Proud Boys, disrupted a school board meeting for Roseville Joint Union High School District, a suburban community outside Sacramento, California, and made comments including echoing “the homophobic trope that the LGBTQ community is full of pedophile groomers.”
Ian Benjamin Rogers, a Napa mechanic was sentenced to nine years in federal prison earlier this month for a “firebomb plot against California Democratic Party offices,” has pleaded no contest to additional state charges “including possession of illegal firearms and destructive devices.”
Must Reads
Hannah Allam reports that “the AR-15’s image as an instrument of domestic terror has been crystallized in recent years by its use in a string of hate-filled mass shootings. AR-15-wielding extremists targeted elderly congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, the deadliest anti-Jewish attack in U.S. history; Jewish families on the last day of Passover in Poway, Calif., in 2019; and, last year, Black customers at a supermarket in Buffalo, to name a few. Other far-right factions throughout the country have shown up with AR-15s to intimidate voters and local officials, harass Muslims outside of mosques, and stand as self-appointed guards at pro-Donald Trump rallies. Anti-government militias also have brandished AR-15s in armed standoffs with federal agents, such as the one in 2014 led by rancher Cliven Bundy in Bunkerville, Nev. ‘Boogaloo’ extremists, part of a right-leaning movement calling for violent revolution, have made the AR-15 a core part of their look, sometimes adorning their weapons with coded symbols.” [The Washington Post]
Heather Digby Parton writes that “Donald Trump adopted the GOP's cultivation of racists but parted ways with the party on many other issues. Aside from stealing Reagan's slogan ‘Make America Great,’ Trump has never said much about him either. He seems to be taking a page from that 1980 playbook, however, with his plans for the first big Trump campaign rally of 2023. On Saturday, he will appear in Waco, Texas, the site of a 51-day standoff between an apocalyptic religious sect called the Branch Davidians and federal law enforcement exactly 30 years ago this month. Considering that Trump is under investigation for inciting an insurrection that resulted in violent clashes between police and extremists, this is too on the nose to be a coincidence.” [Salon]
Thor Benson writes that “It’s difficult to find an apt comparison between the Republican Party and authoritarian movements that have risen elsewhere for a variety of reasons. One, Levitsky says, is that Donald Trump took over a party that has existed for nearly 170 years and made it more authoritarian. Historically, authoritarians tend to start their own parties. Another is that a relatively small percentage of the populace was able to wield such great power under Trump… Authoritarian movements of the past share characteristics with what we’re seeing in the US today—from Turkey and Hungary more recently to the rise of fascism in the 1920s—but the US governmental system and political parties present particular hurdles and windows of opportunity. “ [Wired]
What to expect from Radical Reports: Morning Briefing provides a daily round-up of reporting on the Radical Right; Extremist Links offers a weekly round-up of extremists activities including the white supremacist and militia movements; Narratives of the Right delivers weekly analysis of the current narratives in far right online spaces and promoted by right-wing media; and Research Desk provides monthly highlights research and analysis from academia on the Radical Right.
