Monday, 7 Oct 2024

Capitol Attack Could Fuel Extremist Recruitment For Years, Experts Warn

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 Trump have long 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 — are now discussing how to expand their rosters and whether to take to the streets again this weekend and next week to oppose the inauguration of Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Some, enraged by their failure to overturn the presidential election, have posted manuals on waging guerrilla warfare and building explosive devices.

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. Mr. Morris said he does not support violence, but warned that other groups might find more freedom to plot on encrypted platforms. Mr. Morris said his group lost its Facebook account this summer and was recently kicked off MeWe, one of several smaller platforms that have drawn denizens of the far right.

Since last week, dozens of new channels on secure-messaging apps have popped up devoted to QAnon, the far-right conspiracy theory that says Mr. 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 over 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 earlier this 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 Mr. 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 Mr. Trump spoke of “very fine people on both sides” of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., where a white supremacist fatally ran over a peaceful counterprotester with his car. They saw a signal of support when Mr. Trump, during a presidential debate, told the far-right 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 Mr. Trump’s calls for “law and order” showed up armed and outfitted in tactical gear at Black Lives Matter rallies in places like Louisville and Minneapolis. Right-wing protesters fought in the streets of Portland with left-wing activists. When a 17-year-old was charged with fatally shooting two people at a protest in Kenosha, Wis., armed groups and some conservatives rallied to his side.

Goaded by Mr. 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.

“Luck may be needed in the Second Civil War,” Larry Rendell Brock Jr., a Texas man charged in connection with the attack, wrote on Facebook in the days before the events in Washington, according to federal prosecutors. Mr. Brock had aspired to take hostages, prosecutors said, and tagged the post with the names of two antigovernment groups.

At least two prominent activists involved in the 2017 Charlottesville rally were also at the Capitol riots, according to Amy Spitalnick, the executive director of Integrity First for America, a nonprofit group underwriting a lawsuit over the violence in Charlottesville.

One of them was Nicholas J. Fuentes, 22, a far-right agitator whose online diatribes in support of white nationalism and attacks against Jews and L.G.B.T. people have attracted a significant following among college students. His followers, waving flags bearing the logo of his America First organization, were seen storming the Capitol. Mr. Fuentes, in a video, praised the assault for being more brazen than any Black Lives Matter or antifascist protest, though he appears to have stayed outside.

“We forced a joint session of Congress and the vice president to evacuate because Trump supporters were banging down and then successfully burst through the doors,” he exclaimed.

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 L.G.B.T.Q. 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,” Ms. 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 on Jan. 13. The storming of the building, several analysts said, could fuel a dangerous pushback against the incoming Biden administration and its agenda on gun control, racial justice, public lands and other issues by extremists who are not afraid to use violence to get their way.

But the backlash to the Capitol riot could also diminish them. After Charlottesville, alt-right leaders fractured amid a torrent of condemnation, infighting and legal action. Two dozen white nationalist leaders and groups are being sued for their role in that rally. No longer in the limelight, Richard Spencer, one of its lead organizers, said he has been crippled by legal fees, has lost his social-media megaphones and now feels betrayed by his former allies within the alt-right movement.

The immediate aftermath of the Capitol attack has led to arguing among extremists over whether to hold another round of violent rallies or lie low and wait out the arrests, investigations and throngs of police and National Guard troops dispatched to protect statehouses and the Capitol ahead of the inauguration.

Capitol Riot Fallout

From Riot to Impeachment

The riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:

    • As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.
    • A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.
    • Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.
    • Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.
    • The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.

    Source: Read Full Article

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