Chapman was not the only person to engage in violence during the march. An estimated 70 people showed up to support Trump, while almost three times as many counter-protesters organized to oppose them. According to a police report, people on either side were armed with weapons, shields, pepper spray, portable radios, smoke canisters, etc., wearing protective padding and helmets, and in at least one confirmed case, ballistic armor. Videos show that the event intermittently broke out into outright melees, featuring an abundance of punches, pepper spray, blood, and, of course, Chapmans infamous stick-beating.
Its not hard to see why Chapman was singled out by the alt-right. The photo of him is extremely meme-able; he looks like a medieval cosplay fantasy come to life. It also projects a flattering image. Based Stickman signals that the movement is composed of tough warriors, rather than what Elspeth Reeve succinctly describes at Vice News as a mix of ironic teenage racists, sincere teenage racists, some populists, uptown Klan types, a handful of vain writers impressed by their own intellectual power because few smart people bother to debate them, and a tiny number of actually dangerous people who read the stuff written by the other guys and act on it.
Chapman could be slotted in the last category. But perhaps Chapman is best described as a run-of-the-mill Donald Trump supporter. Chapman told me that his ideology is pretty much in line with what you see coming from the Trump administration. He watches Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity and was rooting for Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012. Before this month, Chapman described his social media habits as going on Facebook once a month.
Chapman was completely unprepared for the virality of the Based Stickman meme. (He pronounces it mem.) Ive been on 4chan, like, once, he told me. Chapman had previously quit smoking for three years, but since Based Stickman went viral, hes up to a pack a day.
Still, Chapman is embracingand benefiting fromhis newfound fame. At the March 4 Trump rally, he was arrested on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon, carrying a concealed dirk or dagger, assault with a taser, and assault with pepper spray. But within 72 hours of his arrest, WeSearchr, the crowdfunding site started by the far-right internet troll Chuck Johnson, raised almost $50,000 for Chapmans legal defense. (WeSearchr is also responsible for raising a $5,500 bounty for whoever unmasks the Antifa protester who punched white nationalist Richard Spencer at Trumps inauguration, a popular meme on the left.) As of today, the campaign has raised a total of $83,985 from 1,467 contributors. Pro-Trump internet gremlin Mike Cernovich, who the New Yorker has described as the meme mastermind of the alt-right, personally contributed $2,500. Five-thousand dollars from that fund have already been used to bail Chapman out of jail.
Donald Trumps ascent has been mirrored by a documented rise in organized hate groups. According to the Southern Poverty Law Centers annual hate group report, the number of hate groups in the country grew from 784 to 917 between 2014 and 2016. SPLC also recorded over 1,000 bias-related incidents, the largest share being anti-immigrant incidents, in the month after Trumps election. But the report notes that there was a visible drop in extremist-led rallies, wryly stating that there hardly seemed a reason to organize their own rallies when extremists could attend a Trump event filled with just as much anti-establishment vitriol as any extremist rally.
Trump has given cover for people who may have felt hesitant about acting out beforehand. For politically marginal groups you need an opening and a space of tolerance if youre going to start protesting, David S. Meyer, sociology professor at UC Irvine, told the New Republic. What were seeing now is a different contingent of the right-wing that has been legitimated and encouraged by the Trump administration. While Chapman has always considered himself a political person, the March 4 Trump rally was the first time he had ever gotten into a fight for political reasons.
Yvette Felarca, a founding member of By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), the militant anti-fascist group that organized the counter-protest at the March 4 Trump rally, told me, I think the danger of the Trump movement is that it isnt just your classic electoral movement thats getting behind a candidate. Its people who see through Trump and his campaign an opportunity to take dangerous and violent action against immigrant, women, Muslim, and LGBT people. Thats the particular danger behind this movement. BAMNs goals are to defend against such attacks and push for equality for these groups.
Militant left-wing Antifa activity has also grown in response to the threat of the Trump administration. An Antifa protester was shot by a Trump supporter at a protest against the right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannapolous in Seattle. Antifa activists employed black bloc tactics to protest Trumps inauguration, which gave us the meme of Richard Spencer getting sucker-punched in the face. In Sacramento, ten people were injured at a clash between white nationalists and Antifa activists, and Antifa protesters were responsible for shutting down Yiannopouloss planned speech at UC Berkeley in early February.
The March 4 Trump rally in Berkeley was organized, in part, as a response to the Yiannopoulos Berkeley protests. Rich Black, the events organizer, told ABC News, Funny enough, Im not actually a Trump supporter. He then asserted that he was motivated by enmity towards the anti-Milo protesters. They believe its okay to shut down those aiming to express themselves.
In other words, Trump may embolden these groups, but he himself was an afterthought for the organizer of the March 4 Trump rally. Instead, the right seems to be using Trump as cover to provoke the left. If youre doing it in Berkeley youre doing it to generate provocation, to get a reaction, Meyer said. Its like when the Nazis marched in Skokie. They are seeking to benefit from these instances where anti-fascists have chosen to be violent to get their point across, Ryan Lenz, senior writer for SPLCs Intelligence Project, told me. It bolsters their own sense of war.
Chapman is certainly buying into the warrior schtick. In an interview with right-wing Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes (who left Vice in 2008), Chapman talks about the March 4 Trump rallywhich he calls the Battle of Berkeleylike someone who owns the extended Lord of the Rings DVD box set. He recounts how he was able to extract an old man from a bad situation and get him to a safe spot. The overall strategy, according to Chapman, was to get our men up to the front and to shore up our flanks so that Antifa counter-protesters didnt bust through us and get back to the rear where our women, and elderly, and peaceful protesters were.
But, according to Felarca of BAMN, Chapman was much less heroic than he claimed to be: [He] was pretty pathetic. In the end, he just got dragged away.
Each side, of course, has an incentive to spin the post-event narrative in their own favor. In crowded settings like the March 4 Trump rally, it is often hard to identify who threw the first punch or who pepper-sprayed whom. In the confusion, memes like Based Stickman are dangerous in that they help to spread a clear, consistent narrative promoting far-right propaganda. One person posted on the Based Stickman 4chan thread, This guy just laid the smack down on your commie brethren.
As Meyer noted, the idea that Based Stickman is a hero can only work in a context where theyre supporting this master narrative of the left being intolerant and threatening. One downside to militant leftist tactics is that they make it easier for someone like Chapman to justify smashing people in the head. In the far-right echochamber, at least, it looks like it might be working. The Based Stickman videos have been viewed on YouTube hundreds of thousands of times. On his Facebook, Chapman posted a photo this week of three copycats dressed up as Based Stickman with the caption, We are all Based Stickman.
But according to Lenz of the SPLC, the intolerant left narrative is simply not backed up by the facts. Its very much a redirection of reality. The left has not been historically nearly as violent as the right, at least not in the last eight years, he asserted. The right says the left is violent and they need to be prepared for it, but when they turn their head theyre wishing for nothing but violence, death, and destruction, on anyone and anything thats not white.
In a (now-hidden) post on Facebook, Chapman himself was uncomfortable with how far white nationalists were taking the meme. He asked his followers to tone down the violence and racism, stating, Im all about preparation and aggressive defense, not violence. We have to maintain the high ground. Thats how we win the long game. When I asked about the reception to the post, Chapman told me that he received tons of backlash. A lot of these young kids they seem to be sitting in front of their computers too much, theyre angry about things.
But when I asked Chapman if he was concerned that someone inspired by the Based Stickman meme might act in a way he wouldnt condone, he brushed it off. You always have that possibility. Thats one of the reasons I put that post on my Facebook. I pointed out that he had taken the post down. I got tired of it being there and all the comments popping up. I just removed it, he said.
On April 15, under the banner of a Freedom Rally, Kyle Chapman and Rich Black are organizing another march at the same park as the March 4 Trump rally. They are raising funds on WeSearchr. The event has been described as a return to Berkeley, and Based Stickman is being used as a recruiting tool.
Felarca says that BAMN will try to be at the event, as well. When I asked about violent tactics on the left being used to justify violence on the right, she told me that she wasnt worried because abusers always try to paint themselves as victims. As for the idolization of Based Stickman, she scoffed. If thats who theyve got to rally behind, they dont have much.
Read more:
The Unlikely Rise of an Alt-Right Hero - New Republic