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As soon as President Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election, political pundits began speculating on what the post-Trump Republican Party would look like. Fresh on the political scene and the newest sweetheart of the Republican Party, Madison Cawthorn just might be a picture of what a future GOP might embody: a concerning picture.

Cawthorn was born and raised in western North Carolina and was sworn in this January as North Carolina District 11s representative at the U.S. House at only 25 years old. Cawthorns politics combine traditional social conservative values, youthful proximity to Gen Z, Trumpism and an utter lack of experience or education. Now, under a guise of charisma and youth, Cawthorn is bringing hard-right conservative values and dangerous rhetoric to Congress as a representative of North Carolina.

Despite many Republicans making a last-ditch effort to put distance between themselves and President Trump after a disastrous and deadly end to his term, Trump has left a lasting impact on the Republican Party (GOP), especially their voters whom Cawthorn skillfully appeals to. Cawthorns Twitter presence, much like Trumps prior to being banned, is peppered with immaturity, including calling his Democratic opponent a simp and infamously tweeting Cry more, lib right after winning his House race.

Fearmongering and conspiracy theories also make appearances. In alignment with Trumps base, Cawthorn has actively promoted debunked allegations of election fraud, objected to the Electoral College votes on the House floor and contributed to the incitement of violence in the events of Jan. 6. Cawthorn also seems unconcerned about COVID-19, rarely mentioning the virus on social media except to ostensibly compare public health restrictions on businesses during the pandemic to oligarchical rule an absurd misuse of the term.

Like former President Trump, Cawthorn is also the focus of multiple sexual misconduct allegations and accusations of white supremacy. Various symbols of the alt-right have been discovered around him including the name of his real estate company, on a gun holster he owns, a flag flown at his home, a picture posted while visiting Hitler's vacation home prompting concern that he is an alt-right Trojan horse.

Perhaps due to his young age, Madison Cawthorn seems aware of the generational rift amongst Republicans. According to Pew Research Center, young Republicans are far more likely than their older counterparts to believe that climate change exists, acknowledge the unfair treatment of Black Americans and say that the government should do more to solve problems. While Cawthorn claims to take an active stance on issues like these that aren't traditionally Republican, the actions he proposes on his website concerning health care and the environment are essentially a doubling down on free-market approaches.

Status quo 2.0. Madison Cawthorn consistently speaks of a big tent New Republican Party that welcomes voters of any identity. Meanwhile, he and his conservative colleagues show absolutely no desire to protect voters of more marginalized identities. Cawthorn simply wants a rebranded Republican Party capable of capturing new voting blocs without any real shift in policy or ideology.

Although Rep. Madison Cawthorn may be an appealing political figure to conservative Gen Z voters who want a party rebrand that is in alignment with the policies that matter most to our generation the environment, health care, being seen as welcoming this rebrand is nothing more than a face-lift. While this slight shift in focus might make the Republican platform more palatable on the surface, figures like Cawthorn could ultimately represent a dangerous shift to the right. As support for a conservative agenda has lapsed amongst younger voters, it is not a surprise that the rising leaders will hail from farther right areas of the party. Meanwhile, Cawthorn claims to speak for the younger generation, but his ultra-conservatism simply doesn't align with the values of young North Carolinians.

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OPINION: Madison Cawthorn shows the troubling future of the GOP - N.C. State University Technician Online

It's been a clarion call of the political right -- "big tech" is biased toward liberals and the political left and advances their agenda, all at the expense of conservatives.

Former President Donald Trump and his allies have long complained about it and suggested conservatives were being censored, allegations social media companies pushed back on.

But the complaints obscure the reality of the social media environment and the right and far-right's deft use of technology over the past several years.

Protesters carring zip ties enter the Senate Chamber on in the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021.

Nowhere was that disconnect more prominently displayed recently than in the failed siege at the Capitol on Jan. 6, some experts who spoke with ABC News said.

The right-wing corners of the internet, which include some of Trump's most ardent supporters, white supremacists and militia members, have harnessed technology to amplify their ideology, these experts said.

Since the days of internet chat rooms and forums like 4chan and 8chan (rebranded as 8kun), the far-right has exploited advances in technology to get around bans from one platform or another.

In the wake of the Capitol siege, Trump and his extreme allies were pushed off mainstream social media networks, one of the principal driving forces behind the Make America Great Again movement. So too were white nationalists and other extremist, violent facets of the right wing. Companies that have banned Trump and right-wing accounts and apps including Facebook, Apple, Google and Reddit, issued some form of the same statement as to the reason for their actions -- their terms of service forbid inciting violence.

But the experts interviewed by ABC News said that these right-wing factions have been able to persist online by staying a step ahead.

They say decentralized platforms, apps and sympathetic hosting providers have become part of the right-wing's technology arsenal. Even Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey dropped hints about helping to create a decentralized social media platform in a series of recent tweets. In a tweet on Jan. 13, Dorsey said, "We are trying to do our part by funding an initiative around an open decentralized standard for social media."

Trump used Twitter like no president before him, and without technology, the former president, his supporters and allies may not have as successfully carved out a large chunk of cyberspace serving as a platform for Trump's MAGA movement.

The Tea Party emerged in 2009 with an agenda to push back then President Barack Obama's policies and promote its libertarian-conservative agenda of small government and less taxes. "Tea Party patriots" used Facebook, Twitter and online conservative forums like Free Republic to organize rallies around the country. Some political pundits consider the Tea Party to be the genesis of the MAGA movement -- and the start of a fissure between moderate conservatives and hard-liners.

The logo of conservative social media platform Gab on a computer and mobile telephone screen, in Paris, Jan. 12, 2021. Gab CEO Andrew Torba claims his social media platform is registering a surge of nearly 10,000 new users per hour in the wake of Amazon's shutdown of conservative social media application Parler, widely used by conservatives and supporters of Former President Donald Trump who are now flocking to the Gab platform.

Trump, already a TV celebrity, took to those same platforms, ramping up followers in the millions. To date, the official Tea Party Facebook page has 1.3 million followers, and Trump's page has 35 million.

In recent years, the internet and some of its darkest reaches connected mostly older Trump supporters with younger denizens of online right-wing platforms including militia members, white supremacists and those in the tech-oriented "alt-right."

As seen in the harrowing images and video from the Capitol melee, rioters ranged in age from 20-somethings to Baby Boomers -- and these different age groups, which tended to aggregate in different internet circles, have been converging in common online spaces.

"There's a lot of Boomer QAnon supporters," said Emmi Bevensee, data scientist, founder of Rebellious Data LLC and author of the report, "The Decentralized Web of Hate."

But QAnon has "people from the 8kun and 4chan network who are extremely battle-hardened and have been running targeted swarm harassment and psy-ops up for many, many years now," Bevensee said. While there's no hard data on 4chan or 8kun's demographics, those sites are generally associated with younger, male users.

In fact, 4chan and 8chan, which used to be underground communities posting and sharing often toxic and hateful content, have made their way to the highest level of U.S. politics, said Bevensee.

Ron Watkins, the former 8chan administrator and current administrator of its successor, the Watkins-owned 8kun, became involved in the unfounded Dominion voting machine fraud conspiracy after he filed an affidavit with Trump advocate and attorney Sidney Powell in the dismissed Georgia voter fraud lawsuit, baselessly speculating that "it may be 'within the realm of possibility' for a biased poll worker to fraudulently switch votes, the Washington Post reported.

Conspiracy theories about Dominion were embraced by Trump and his allies and helped fuel the "Stop the Steal" campaign that ended in the Capitol siege.

Forums and online communities aren't the only technology the far-right have embraced.

Even with the mass banning from traditional social networks, some of the most-followed podcasts are hosted by right-wing influencers. According to podcastsinsight.com, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has the No. 5 of the Top 100 podcasts listened to on Apple Podcasts, and young conservative activist, Charlie Kirk's podcast is No. 8. as of January 2021.

During the 2020 presidential debates, the conversations with the most user engagement on Facebook about the debates were on conservative Facebook pages: Fox News, Breitbart and Shapiro's page, according to data from social media analyzer CrowdTangle, the New York Times reported. A spokesperson for Shapiro emphasized, however, that Shapiro repeatedly refuted claims of widespread election fraud. Shapiro told his audience that former Vice President Pence was not able to stop the certification process in several instances on Twitter and on his podcast encouraged his followers to accept the electoral college representatives and their votes.

Pro-Trump protesters storm the Capitol during clashes with police in Washington, D.C, Jan. 6, 2021.

Clearly, those on the left side of the political spectrum also use technology to further grassroots movements and to organize rallies. Facebook's official Black Lives Matter page has over 750,000 followers. Meet-ups and events are posted there regularly. The anti-fascist movement referred to as "antifa" gained prominence after white nationalists rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Yet, there's no organized antifa group with clearly defined leadership -- for instance, there is no verified antifa Facebook page, but there are accounts online that describe themselves as antifa-affiliated; who they actually are is unknown. In June, Twitter suspended the ANTIFA_US account saying it was actually tied to a white nationalist group, Axios reported.

But more pressure is being placed on companies who advertise on conservative media, and as traditional social networks throw more of those voices off their platforms, the right wing, and in particular the most fringe elements including white supremacists, are turning to more sophisticated tech platforms including blockchain and peer-to-peer (P2P) networks -- where computers are connected to each other over the internet and share resources. P2P networks allow for decentralized networks and platforms where there is no one controlling or managing entity -- essentially, these networks are unregulated -- open frontiers for all kinds of content including the most base and hateful.

On the cutting edge of tech

David Golumbia, associate professor of digital studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, and the author of "The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism," said he believes the radical right not only utilizes but helps drive technological innovation.

"Sometimes people say pornography drives technological innovation, which is partly true. But I sometimes think that the radical right is way up there," he said. Golumbia has written on the far-right's adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain -- a type of database where data is stored in blocks and then chained together. It's the underlying platform for Bitcoin and used in a decentralized way -- no one person or group has control of the platform.

"The whole idea of blockchain was to prevent government from being able to have any say whatsoever about technology," said Golumbia.

He said some of the most fervent proponents of blockchain-based cryptocurrency including Bitcoin, have been those who "identified strongly with the far right," a concern also mentioned in a 2019 congressional report.

A report from the Southern Poverty Law Center states that "many on the far-right were early adopters" of digital currency. The SPLC's website features a list "of some of the most prominent white nationalists and other extremists who accept Bitcoin."

In December 2020, Laurent Bachelier, a French computer programmer, donated more than $500,000 in Bitcoin to various right-wing causes, before dying by suicide, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Blockchain is a type of P2P technology, but there are others. Some include decentralized messaging apps like Telegram and Signal; and social networks like Minds, Mastodon and Diaspora. Decentralized messaging apps and social networks allow message exchanges and interaction from user to user without any central authority or server.

Conversely, centralized platforms have one governing authority that holds all the platform's data, transactions and user information. Examples of centralized online platforms include government websites, banking sites and commercial platforms and apps like Facebook, Twitter and Lyft.

Parler, Gab and Discord are not on blockchain but they use bits of some of the same distributed technology, said Golumbia.

Crowds arrive for the "Stop the Steal" rally on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. Trump supporters gathered in the nation's capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election.

While many founders of decentralized platforms including blockchain and P2P have said they are dedicated to the idea of a free and democratized internet, experts like Bevensee and others see evidence of decentralized technology's increasing use by the extreme far-right.

Evan Henshaw-Plath is the co-founder and CEO of Planetary described as "a humane decentralized social media platform." Henshaw-Plath, a founding member of Twitter said, "we've seen a lot of interest and people moving over from centralized platforms over the last few weeks." He said the platform has been "overwhelmed by new users."

For him, open networks are an alternative to "Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, et al" which he likens to "a shopping mall."

"[They] feel like a public space but in reality it's a corporate-run space."

But, "we're not all interested in becoming a platform or tool for white supremacists and Trump supporters," Henshaw-Plath said. He said he marched nightly in Portland at Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd was killed, even getting pepper-sprayed.

"I'm not going to spend every night protesting for racial justice and then every day work to build a platform to empower racists."

Planetary's terms of service doesn't allow hate speech or conspiracy theories.

Daryl Davis is an official adviser to decentralized social network Minds. He's been working with the Mind's team on de-radicalization methods through open communication and through hosting a weekly podcast at Change.minds.com where he said he has interviewed white supremacists and extremists to "engage in constructive, productive conversation."

Davis, who is Black, said he thinks banning speech, even hate speech on open internet platforms is problematic.

"A lot of topics are taboo. And there aren't enough platforms that are willing to deal with [that]. And people cannot express their views they tend to build underground, and go to the dark side and [it] becomes a pressure cooker. And then they explode. So we need something where everybody can talk," Davis said.

As to banning racist, hate speech, Davis said, "When you ban those things, for some people, it empowers them, it enables them to think 'I'm being banned because I'm telling the truth.'"

Yet, despite some progressive founders and advocates' support for open, decentralized and more ethical internet platforms, Bevensee said "various organizing attempts of white supremacist attacks have already utilized P2P technology to facilitate white supremacist violence."

For example, the suspect in the 2019 mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, posted on 8chan, according to investigative journalism website Bellingcat.

"When I used to track the Atomwaffen Division which is like this Nazi accelerationist group, they were really actively organizing through Gab," Bevensee said.

And leading up to the Capitol siege, Bevensee said online users were flagging law enforcement about violent posts related to the Capitol and the Stop the Steal rally. "All these journalists who study the far-right, just started retweeting them with screenshots from Parler from the Donald.wins [website]," Bevensee said. This included posts "from those of just people explicitly planning, like the exact details down to 'here's where you can buy zip ties.' Very specific, very violent things completely in the open. And we have 99.9% of all that data," said Bevensee.

Countering far-right extremism in technology

Many of the most extreme Trump supporters and the far-right have been silenced by Big Tech. But by no means have they been silenced for good.

Parler has been in the midst of a legal battle with Amazon, which previously provided hosting through Amazon Web Services. After Jan. 6, when evidence came out that Parler users had posted hateful content -- loaded with threats of violence and racial slurs Amazon suspended web hosting services to Parler, essentially forcing it offline.

And a judge recently threw out Parler's plea for reinstatement, finding that Amazon was not obligated to restore its web service, The Associated Press reported.

And these platforms may move more toward P2P technology, according to Bevensee. "It's not impossible, that Parler will move to Mastodon," according to Bevensee.

Mastodon is one of the decentralized social media platforms allowing anyone to set up their own social network and dictate the content and rules for their network. "If they do, that'll be like one of the largest uses of peer-to peer social media technology They'd be federating with Gab" and other like-minded communities, possibly creating a vast online community, Bevensee said.

Such a pivot could exacerbate the far-right's online activities even as they are banned from various platforms.

"These communities are so agile, they just immediately build the same community with a slightly different name, or even the same name. And even though they lose all their channel subscribers, because of the search indexes, it's really easy for the channel subscribers to find the new one," Bevensee said.

How do you stop online activity from promoting propaganda and whipping up the frenzy that resulted in the lawlessness on Capitol Hill? It's not an easy solution, especially when technology is involved.

Getting lawmakers more tech-savvy is one way. "Senators Elizabeth Warren, Mark Warner, quite a few others" recognize that a change is needed overall with social media networks and online communications but should be thoughtful and nuanced, Golumbia said.

For now, the challenge remains: how to work out a balance between allowing diverse voices online while putting reins on extremist content that has far too often been mobilized into violence.

Editors Note: This article has been updated to reflect the views of Ben Shapiro on the results of the 2020 presidential election.

ABC News' Catherine Thorbecke, Katherine Faulders and Libby Cathey contributed to this report.

The rest is here:
How the far-right harnessed tech in the lead-up to the Capitol riot - ABC News

The alt-right, QAnon, paramilitary and Donald Trump-supporting mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6 claimed they were only doing what the so-called founding fathers of the US had done in 1776: overthrowing an illegitimate government that no longer represented them.

This was the start of what they called the second American Revolution.

This is why the Dont Tread on Me flag was visible in the chaos a symbol of resistance that dates back to the (first) American Revolution and was resurrected a decade ago by Republican Tea Party activists.

It is not hard to understand the appeal of this history to Trumps followers. The era of the founding fathers has always loomed large in the minds of most Americans. And stories about the past are, after all, how individuals, families, and communities small and large, make sense of themselves.

Yet, it is worth noting these recollections of the past are necessarily selective.

Alt-right extremists, following conservative politicians, have also drawn succour from the Constitution, particularly when it comes to their rights, such as the right to free speech and bear arms.

These and other rights were not actually enumerated in the original Constitution, but rather tacked on in the Bill of Rights a set of ten amendments passed to appease opponents of the Constitution and get it ratified.

These rights are fused together with the more vague yet unalienable rights enunciated in the 1776 Declaration of Independence chief among them being the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Read more: Why were the Capitol rioters so angry? Because they're scared of losing grip on their perverse idea of democracy

Drawing on philosopher John Lockes ideas, the Declaration of Independence proclaims we the people come together to form a government to protect these rights.

And crucial to Trump supporters today, it says,

whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.

This was the sentiment voiced on January 6 when pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol. They chanted This is our America and Whose house? Our house!

Trump himself encouraged this thinking when he told the crowd before they marched to the Capitol, Youll never take back our country with weakness.

The question is: who do Trump and, more broadly speaking, the alt-right think has taken the United States from them?

The answer is evident in how the alt-right imagines the past: their vision of history omits or callously ignores the fact their constitutional rights have come at the cost of the lives and rights of others.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence it was a self-evident truth that all men are created equal. Generations of enslaved and free Black activists and their allies have worked towards realising this goal.

Read more: Why the far-right and white supremecists have embraced the Middle Ages and their symbols

But for the founding fathers, and many of their white supremacist heirs, true citizens were exclusively white and male. A few years after penning the declaration, Jefferson denounced Black people as inferior. He owned hundreds of slaves. Even his own children, whom he fathered with Sally Hemings, were born into slavery.

Almost all of the founding fathers, in fact, were slaveholders or profited from the slave trade. Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution freed any of the half million enslaved people in the new United States one-fifth of the population.

Rather, the Constitution purposefully entrenched the institution of slavery. By protecting the rights of slaveholders to pursue their happiness by holding on to their property, it doomed four more generations to enslavement.

By the start of the Civil War in 1861, there were 4 million people enslaved in the US.

The Constitution also gave the government the power to raise an army. After the American Revolution, this power was used time and again to wage a long genocidal war against Native Americans across the continent.

When enslaved and free Black people and their white abolitionist allies acted against slavery, slaveholders invoked the Revolution. They claimed they were undertaking Gods will to complete the work begun in 1776 of creating a free nation, and made slave-holding former President George Washington their hero.

It took an unprecedented and destructive Civil War to finally put an end to slavery, and another century or so for African Americans to achieve full rights as citizens in the United States. Every step of the way, they were contested and blocked by individuals, groups, states and judges who claimed they were upholding the principles of the Constitution.

Read more: Why is the Confederate flag so offensive?

It should be no surprise, then, the alt-right movement is invoking the same Revolution today.

After Barack Obamas presidency, Trump gave a voice to the grievances of his largely white supporters who feared they were being displaced in their own country.

And following the summer of the Black Lives Matter movement and Trumps baseless claims the 2020 election was stolen, the Capitol Hill insurrectionists firmly believed they had lost control of the United States. They were no longer the we the people in charge.

As in the past, they also had the support of prominent politicians beyond Trump. One of their supporters, the newly elected Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (who is also a QAnon supporter) declared before the January 6 move to block the certification of Joe Bidens presidential victory, This is our 1776 moment.

And Congressman Paul Gosar, a prominent Trump supporter, wrote an op-ed entitled Are we witnessing a coup detat? in which he advised followers to be ready to defend the Constitution and the White House.

It has never been entirely clear when exactly the United States was last great in the minds of Trump supporters wearing their Make America Great Again caps. It might be the Ronald Reagan presidency of the 1980s for some, or sometime prior to the civil rights, womens and gay liberation movements and the US defeat in Vietnam.

But theres no doubt as to when this mythical greatness started. The yearning for the founding era a time when slaveholders overthrew a government to protect their rights (including the right to hold people as property) is palpable.

Read more:
Why the alt-right believes another American Revolution is coming - The Conversation AU

Militiamen showed up proudly bearing the emblems of their groups American flags with the stars replaced by the Roman numeral III, patches that read Oath Keepers. Alt-right types wore Pepe the Frog masks, and QAnon adherents could be seen in T-shirts urging people to Trust the Plan. White supremacists brought their variant of the Crusader cross.

And then there were thousands of Trump supporters with MAGA gear flags, hats, T-shirts, thermoses, socks. One flag portrayed President Trump as Rambo; another featured him riding a Tyrannosaurus rex and carrying the kind of rocket-propelled grenade launcher seen on the streets of Mogadishu or Kandahar.

The iconography of the American far right was on display on Jan 6. during the violence at the Capitol. The dizzying array of symbols, slogans and images was, to many Americans, a striking aspect of the unrest, revealing an alternate political universe where violent extremists, outright racists and conspiracy theorists march side by side with evangelical Christians, suburban Trump supporters and young men who revel in making memes to own the libs.

Uniting them is a loyalty to Mr. Trump and a firm belief in his false and discredited insistence that the election was stolen. The absurdity of many images the patches that read Zombie Outbreak Response Team," for instance only masked a devotion that inspired hundreds from the crowd to mount a deadly attack on Congress.

Its often all a caricature it looks like military fan fiction until its not and it crosses a very dangerous line, said Joan Donovan, the research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Its funny until its scary, she said.

These are some of the groups and their insignia.

Out in force were right-wing militias like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, whose symbol, the Roman numeral III, could be seen on patches and flags. Both groups are anti-government, pro-guns and, nowadays, devoted to Mr. Trump.

Others on the right who share the militias anti-government views often signal their beliefs with the Gadsden flag, a yellow banner dating to the American Revolution with a rattlesnake and the phrase Dont Tread on Me. Dozens were waved at the Capitol last week.

And then there is the Confederate battle flag. A man carried the banner of secession and slavery through the halls of the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The Boogaloos marked themselves by wearing their signature Hawaiian shirts. A group of Proud Boys showed up in orange hats.

Both the Boogaloos and the Proud Boys include racists and anti-Semites, though the outright white supremacists tend to keep a lower profile. Some wear Crusader crosses or Germanic pagan imagery that has become popular on the racist and anti-Semitic fringes. Others have adopted the OK hand gesture as their own, seeing it as mimicking the letters W and P, for white power.

Pepe the Frog, the smirking cartoon amphibian that has become a widely recognized symbol of the alt-right crowd, was a common sight.

Also on display were the green-and-white flags of Kekistan, the fictional country that is home to the deity Kek. In the meme-driven culture of the alt-right, a satirical religion has sprouted up around Kek as a way to troll liberals and self-righteous conservatives, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups. He is a god of chaos and darkness, with the head of a frog, the source of their mimetic magic, to whom the alt-right and Donald Trump owe their success.

The flag is partly derived from the Nazi flag, a design that is treated as a provocative joke in alt-right circles.

This conspiracy theory falsely claims that there is a cabal of Democrats, deep-state bureaucrats and international financiers who use their power to rape and kill children, and that Mr. Trump was elected to vanquish them.

The canard is convoluted and confusing, but its iconography is clear and was plentiful: There were shirts with the letter Q or slogans like Trust the Plan; signs saying Save the Children; and flags with the abbreviation WWG1WGA, which stands for Where We Go One, We Go All.

Alongside the violent, the overtly racist and the paranoid were thousands of devoted Trump supporters, some of whom even brought young children. The crowd was filled with people in MAGA regalia, and Trump flags were everywhere. Most just said Trump; others were a bit more outlandish.

The skull-like symbol of the Punisher, a crime-fighting Marvel comic book antihero, was a common sight. It has become a popular emblem on the far right in recent years and is sometimes used by police officers to signal one another without having to wear badges.

There were people waving the South Vietnamese flag, which disappeared decades ago when the North won the war. But now it lives again, adopted by some on the American right as a symbol of anti-communist resistance.

Then there was the Zombie Outbreak Response Team. A man wearing a sticker with its emblem was photographed inside the Capitol. His face is obscured in the picture, and he has not been identified. But the zombie teams website describes its members as preppers and survivalists preparing for all worst case scenarios.

Continued here:
Decoding the Far-Right Symbols at the Capitol Riot - The New York Times

Stephanie Warsmith|Akron Beacon Journal

The Proud Boys call themselves Western chauvinists.

They wear black and yellow Polo-style shirts that make them easy to spot.

And, increasingly, the group is being tied to demonstrations that have turned destructive and deadly, including the storming of the U.S. Capitol last week.

With President-elect Joe Bidens inauguration next week and threats made to target Washington D.C. and state capitals, many are concerned that the Proud Boys and other radical, right-leaning groups could wreak more havoc.

Youre seeing a lot of rhetoric revolution, attacks on statehouses, Bidens inauguration, said David Licate, a University of Akron criminal justice professor who once served on an FBI team that studied violent extremists. You have to take it seriously. They (Proud Boys) are becoming more violent.

Though the Proud Boys have been gaining national notoriety, they havent drawn as much attention in the Akron area.

I have heard of this group in a national context, said Lt. Michael Miller, an Akron police spokesman. I am not aware of any local activity or chatter.

But in the past two years, there have been signs of the groups presence locally and in Ohio:

Proud Boys sent a press release to the Canton Repository, another USA TODAY Network Ohio newspaper, last month promoting food and toy donations in Canton and Lorain around the holidays.

However, the Beacon Journal was unable to find anyone involved in the group locally to talk to for this story. No one responded to a request for comment made on the Proud Boys website or an email sent to the address on the poster hung in Wooster.

We dont talk to the media, said Dan Ciammaichella, who was identified as a media spokesman for the Akron-Canton Proud Boys in the release sent to the Repository. Thank you very much.

Proud Boys is a relatively new group, kicked off in 2016.

Gavin McGinnes, co-founder of Vice Media, started the group and called it a club for men. He espoused misogynistic and anti-Islamic views, as well as racist overtones.

He claimed they were not alt-right, not white nationalist but pro-west, like a fraternity, said Licate, a 20-year UA professor.

The groups tenets, according to its website, include: minimal government, maximum freedom, anti-political correctness, anti-drug war, closed borders, anti-racial guilt, anti-racism, pro-free speech, pro-gun rights, glorifying the entrepreneurand venerating the house wife.

To become a Proud Boy, a man must declare he is a Western chauvinist who refuses to apologize for creating a modern world, according to the website. Leaders of the group define this chauvinism as patriotism or extreme nationalism.

The groups name is a nod to a song in Disneys "Aladdin" called Proud of Your Boy.

I just made it up, McGinnes said in a video on the Proud Boys website.

McGinnes said the group has gained thousands of members all over the world, including in Africa, Japan and Australia.

New Proud Boys members must be beaten up by five men until they can name five breakfast cereals, quit porn and get a tattoo, McGinnis said.

McGinnis recalled a timewhen he went to New York University to give a talk and the group's members clashed with protesters.

We beat the crap out of them, McGinnis said in the video, drawing cheers and applause from the audience.

McGinnis has now stepped away from the group and Enrique Tarrio, who is originally from Cuba, is the new leader.

Licate said the group has gotten more violent and well-armed.

New members are now asked to beat up someone they thinkis liberal or left-leaning, Licate said.

They went from a pseudo-fraternity that gets it name from an Aladdins song and has to recite cereals to becoming increasingly militant, Licate said.

Some Proud Boys members werent happy with the groups alt-light characterization and started the Fraternal Order of Alt Knights (FOAK), who are considered the groups bodyguards or strike force, Licate said.

Tarrio, the new Proud Boys leader, was arrested for burning a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a historic Black church in a December demonstration in Washington, D.C. to protest Trumps election defeat. Tarrio also faces weapons charges and wasbanned from being in the Capitol, besides going to court.

Licatesaid he would characterize Proud Boys as a hate group. He said hes not sure if they meet the definition of domestic terrorists, which refers to a group that has engaged in violence for a political or social end.

Licate said Proud Boys were at the Jan. 6 protest outside of the Capitol, but he isnt sure if they were among those who breached the building.

Proud Boys, Three Percenters and Oath Keepers were among the right-wing extremist groups captured in photos and videos at the Capitol insurrection. Five people were killed, including a police officer.

Licate said Three Percenters and Oath Keepers both have an ex-military/law enforcement base and the Oath Keepers are staunch constitutionalists. He said Proud Boys lean heavier on misogyny and racism than these other groups.

They are all anti-left and hard-core conservative, Licate said.

Closer to home, Licate said hes aware the Proud Boys have chapters in Columbus and the Akron area but hasnt heard much about their activities.

They havent really made themselves known, beyond an online presence, he said.

The Akron-Canton Proud Boys had an open-carry display on the Kent State campus in September 2019 as a counter to a rally for Democratic presidential candidate Beto ORourke. ORourke had proposed a mandatory gun buyback program during a presidential debate.

The Proud Boys display featured an array of rifles and smaller firearms, secured with metal rope and padlocks. A sign on the front asked onlookers, Which one of these should be banned?

Were out here, pretty much, just to spark conversation with people, Ron Jones, a Proud Boys member, told the Record-Courier. Were hoping people from their side will come up and talk with us a little bit and maybe bridge the gap a little bit.

The event was largely peaceful, though a Kent student was arrested for throwing a milkshake on Proud Boys members.

In early November, a Proud Boys flier was hung in the front of the Spoon Market & Deli in downtown Wooster, angering the owners of the business.

The flier said, The lies of the left are meant to dissuade, distract and demoralize, and called Proud Boys the most lied about, slandered and targeted group. Why? it asked and included a website and email addressfor the group.

Patrice Smith, co-owner of the deli, posted the flier on her Facebook page, seeking information on the cowardly person or people who posted it. Her post drew both backlash and support.

We will not compromise our integrity, ethics and responsibility, Smith wrote.

The Akron-Canton Proud Boys, in an emailed statementto the Daily-Record newspaper, said its members distributed fliers in the Wooster area Oct. 30.

"Proud Boys wanted to send a message to the voters in America that we are EVERYWHERE, so they can feel safe casting their votes through November 3rd," said the statement, signed by the group.

Flyers also were posted in Amherst Plaza in Massillon.

More: Proud Boys, counter-protesters clash

In mid-December, a 43-year-old Akron man was among 39 people arrested after a group of Proud Boys protesting Trumps election defeat clashed with anti-Trump counter-protesters in Washington D.C.

Four people were stabbed, while others were beaten and pepper-sprayed and several churches were vandalized.

These Proud Boys are avowed white nationalists and have been called to stand up against a fair and legal election, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, told the Washington Post.

The Akron man is accused of being part of a large group spotted by an officer chasing down another man, knocking him to the ground and beating him with what appeared to be long, thin batons. The officer saw the Akron man take a running start and kick the other man in the head several times while he was on the ground, according to court records.

The man who was beaten fled and didnt return to the scene.

The Akron man wore black para-military style clothing, including a helmet, vest, backpack and gloves, as well as a yellow scarf. He also had a black plastic and rubber baton that was about 4 feet long, according to court records.

Police charged the Akron man with rioting, attempted possession of a criminal weapon and assault, all misdemeanors. He pleaded not guilty in D.C. Superior Court and was released until his next court appearance.

Neither the Akron man nor his attorney could be reached for comment.

Law enforcement in the Capitol and across the country are worried that the type of violence seen in D.C. in December or at the Capitol could be repeated or escalated before and on inauguration day.

Licate said law enforcement must prepare for the worst, while weighing the right to protest with the need to protect safety and prevent destruction.

Were stuck in a holding pattern, Licatesaid. When people take the jump from word to deed, thats when law enforcement can get involved.

Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com, 330-996-3705 and on Twitter: @swarsmithabj.

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Proud Boys among groups being watched as inauguration approaches. Do they have Northeast Ohio ties? - Akron Beacon Journal