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Proud Boys

During the first US presidential debate on 28 September 2020, President Donald Trump did not condemn white supremacist groups and their role in stoking violence in American cities this summer. "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by … Somebody has got to do something about antifa and the left," he said, sparking a social media storm of support from the right-wing group. When the debate's moderator, journalist Chris Wallace, asked Trump if he was willing to condemn "white supremacists and militia groups," Trump answered: "Sure, I'm willing to do that, but I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing."

Within minutes of Trump's comment during the debate, members of the Proud Boys started posting in private and open social media channels, praising his remark as "historic" and an endorsement of the group's violent tactics. On the Proud Boys' account on the messaging app Telegram, members of the group celebrated by writing things like "standing down and standing by Sir." Some members also changed the group's logo to include the words "stand back and stand by." Roger Stone, an adviser to Donald Trump, also appeared regularly alongside members of the militia.

The New York Times estimates the group has between 1,000 and 3,000 members. Any man who wants to be a Proud Boy must pass four initiation rites: utter the phrase “I am a Western Chauvinist and I refuse to apologise for creating the modern world, and we call ourselves ‘the Proud Boys’", name five brands of cereals while being beaten up, get a tattoo of the Proud Boys logo, renounce masturbation and participate in fights with extreme left-wing groups.

Much like members of the Boogaloo Bois, another far-right group that is known to wear Hawaiian shirts, the Proud Boys have also adopted a uniform of choice. The Proud Boys, an all-male group founded in 2016 by Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, donned a "new uniform" of khakis and polos. McInnes, who left Vice in 2008 due to what he described as "creative differences", used his former programme at Rebel Media, a right-wing online Canadian outlet, to promote the Proud Boys. McInnes denied the Proud Boys was a racist group but instead promoted "Western chauvinism" - the idea that "The West" and its ideals "are best".

On August 12, 2017, white nationalism with its new, clean-cut look would clash with its opponents. The "Unite The Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia saw thousands of white nationalists - including those from McInnes's group - march on the upscale Virginia city, where antifascist and anti-racist counterdemonstrators met them in equal force. In advance of Unite the Right, McInnes publicly urged Proud Boys not to attend. The protest's organiser, Jason Kessler, had been a Proud Boy. People of colour were attacked by groups of white nationalists, leading to various trials, and 32-year-old counterprotester Heather Heyer was killed in a car-ramming attack. It was political violence in the US not seen for decades.

On 30 June 2018, some of the most violent clashes of the Trump era erupted in Portland, Oregon, when Proud Boys joined forces with the followers of US senatorial candidate Joey Gibson in the northwestern city. Referring to one of the Proud Boys who knocked a counterdemonstrator unconscious with a powerful blow to the face, McInnes said: "Check out the turning point in the war against Antifa." Describing the assault as "beautiful", he added: "That is some fantastic stuff, totally inspiring stuff … We're winning now, I'm not tired of winning."

Three people were arrested in New York City following violent clashes after a speech by the founder of a far-right group, and police said 14 October 2018 they were reviewing video of the clashes and could make additional arrests. The violence followed a speech by Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys, at the Metropolitan Republican Club. McInnes’s beliefs include the idea that one is not a man until, among other things, he has beaten someone up and been beaten up.

The male-only Proud Boys describe themselves as “western chauvinists.” Videos posted on YouTube show clashes between the Proud Boys and groups that were protesting McInnes’ speech. New York City Public Advocate Letitia James, a Democrat who is running for state attorney general, said, “I am disturbed and disgusted by the videos I’ve seen of members of the neo-fascist, white supremacist Proud Boys group engaging in hate-fueled mob violence on the streets of New York City.” McInnes had referred to the actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who is black, as a “monkey” and referred to the United States as a “white country.”

The Proud Boys cloak themselves in a chauvinistic patriotism based in idealized nostalgia. They endorse what is referred to as 'radical traditionalism,' an ideology based in subjugating women and returning men to bread winner status. In support of this chauvinism they support anything perceived to counter feminism, including fat shaming and rape denialism. To give you a taste of the sort of fringe ideas espoused by the group, the movement’s founder Gavin McInnes has penned articles such as 'Hey, Ladies! Short Hair Is Rape,', 'Feminist Witch Hunts are Rape', 'When Is It OK To Hit A Woman?', and 'Having Kids Turns You Into A Complete Fag.' McInnes relied on radically hateful language to bring in audiences. There is no nuance or thought to what he writes. He wrote for pure shock value.

McInnes left the Proud Boys in November 2018, as the group was tied to increasingly violent and racist protests. McInnes said the Proud Boys were not extremists and had no ties to white nationalists, though he added, “This whole idea of white nationalists and white supremacy is a crock” and “such people don’t exist.” McInnes said he was reluctantly quitting the Proud Boys “in all capacities, forever,” because his lawyers had told him the gesture might help members who had been arrested after his October 2018 talk.

Facebook marked the Proud Boys as dangerous and banned their content in 2018. Members have been charged with violence in multiple instances and clashed with anti-racism protesters. One of the accounts connected to the Proud Boys was operated by Jacob Engels, Facebook said. Stone testified in 2019 that Engels could post on Instagram on his behalf and had access to his phone. Engels, who writes for far-right sites, told Reuters he was not a member of the Proud Boys but had "embedded" with them to research the group.

Flag-waving members of the Proud Boys and Three Percenters militia group gathered in Portland, Oregon late in the morning 18 August 2019, some also wearing body armor and helmets. Police said they had seized the weapons as the protesters assembled along the Willamette River that runs through the city. Police arrested at least 13 people, established concrete barriers, closed streets and bridges, and seized a multitude of weapons in an attempt to preempt violence between right-wing groups and anti-fascist counter-protesters. Metal poles, bear spray, shields and other weapons were taken from protesters by the authorities as hundreds of far-right protesters and counter-demonstrators crowded the downtown area, but there were no major incidents between the two factions.

Joe Biggs, the organizer of the far-right demonstration, is a member of the Proud Boys, which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Joining them were the American Guard, Three Percenters, Oathkeepers and Daily Stormers. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Guard is a "white nationalist group," Three Percenters and Oathkeepers are "extremist," anti-government militias, and the Daily Stormers are "neo-Nazis."

Biggs said the manifestation was a success. "Go look at President Trump's Twitter," he told The Oregonian/OregonLive. "He talked about Portland, said he's watching antifa. That's all we wanted." Trump indicated that he could take action on Antifa. The president said in a tweet, "Major consideration is being given to naming ANTIFA an “ORGANIZATION OF TERROR.” Portland is being watched very closely. Hopefully the Mayor will be able to properly do his job!" However, there is no federal criminal offense of 'domestic terrorism.'

On 08 July 2020 Facebook removed 50 personal and professional pages connected to U.S. President Donald Trump's longtime adviser Roger Stone, who is due to report to prison next week. The social media platform said Stone and his associates, including a prominent supporter of the right-wing Proud Boys group in Stone's home state of Florida, had used fake accounts and followers to promote Stone's books and posts. Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy, said the removals were meant to show that artificially inflating engagement for political impact would be stopped, no matter how well-connected the practitioners. “It doesn’t matter what they’re saying, and it doesn’t matter who they are,” Gleicher told Reuters before the announcement on the company's blog. “We expect we’re going to see more political actors cross this line and use coordinated inauthentic behavior to try to influence public debate.”

Two days before planned demonstrations against the certification of Joe Biden's election as the next US president, Enrique Tarrio, leader of the far-right Proud Boys, was arrested in Washington, DC. Born in the US to Cuban-American parents, he has been leading the extremist group for more than two years. When on a march, Tarrio always wears the same outfit. Baseball cap on his head, sunglasses on his nose, yellow and black polo shirt and bulletproof vest on his back as he leads his troops. The 36-year-old was arrested 04 January 2021 in the US capital for his participation in the burning of a "Black Lives Matter" banner that was taken from a historic black church in DC during a demonstration last month. Tarrio admitted his role in the destruction of the banner in an interview with the Washington Post newspaper but said his actions didn’t constitute a hate crime because he believes the Black Lives Matter movement “has terrorised the citizens of this country". He is also charged with a felony possession of two high-capacity firearm magazines, which were found at the time of his arrest.

The Cuban-American, raised in Miami’s Little Havana, already had a significant criminal record. At the age of 20, he was convicted of stealing a motorcycle and sentenced to three years of probation and community service. At 29 he was convicted of selling stolen medical supplies and sentenced to 16 months in jail.

In 2017 Tarrio began socialising with members of the Proud Boys, which had been founded a year earlier by Gavin McInnes, the co-founder of Vice magazine. Tarrio, who grew up in a conservative Cuban community, was quickly seduced. In August, he was present at the infamous "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville alongside hundreds of white supremacists, nationalists and other neo-Nazis protesting the removal of the statue of secessionist general Robert E Lee. A protestor drove his car into counter-demonstrators, killing one person.

A video investigation by the New York Times on17 June 2022 detailed how the far-right Proud Boys group helped to foment anger among rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn the election victory of President Joe Biden. An analysis by the newspaper, which builds off the work of online researchers, showed how “members of the group maneuvered in a coordinated fashion” on January 6 “in a way that was not previously known and in a manner that was unlike that of the hundreds of other rioters who stormed” the US Capitol, where the US Congress was meeting to certify the 2020 presidential election results.

Specifically, the investigation pointed to a pattern in how the Proud Boys operated on that day, appearing to identify access points to the building and rile up protesters at those locations, “sometimes directly joining in the violence”. If the group met resistance, they appeared to regroup and target new entry points. Notably, members of the group were instructed by its leaders not to wear their identifying black and yellow uniforms in a “way that disguised their actions and … played down their importance in moving the action forward”, according to the newspaper, which spent months identifying Proud Boys members within the crowd.

A jury in the District of Columbia on 04 May 2023 returned guilty verdicts on multiple felonies against five members of the Proud Boys, finding four of the defendants guilty of seditious conspiracy for their actions before and during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. According to the evidence at trial, in the months leading up to Jan. 6, the defendants plotted to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power, and to prevent the Members of Congress, and the federal law enforcement officers who protect them, from discharging their duties.

Henry "Enrique" Tarrio, 39, of Miami, the former national chairman of the Proud Boys; Ethan Nordean, 32, of Auburn, Washington; Joseph Biggs, 39, of Ormond Beach, Florida; Zachary Rehl, 37, of Philadelphia, were found guilty of seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. The four defendants and co-defendant Dominic Pezzola, 45, of Rochester, New York, were also found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent Members of Congress and federal law enforcement officers from discharging their duties, civil disorder, and destruction of government property. Pezzola was also found guilty of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and robbery involving government property.

"Today, the Justice Department secured the conviction of four leaders of the Proud Boys for seditious conspiracy related to the January 6th attack on the Capitol," said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. "In addition, those defendants and a fifth member of the Proud Boys were all convicted of felonies including obstructing Congress's certification of the 2020 presidential election results and conspiring to prevent Congress and federal officers from discharging their duties. The evidence presented at trial detailed the extent of the violence at the Capitol on January 6th and the central role these defendants played in setting into motion the unlawful events of that day. The Department has secured more than 600 convictions for a wide range of criminal conduct on January 6th, as well as in the days and weeks leading up to the attack. And we have now secured the convictions of leaders of both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers for seditious conspiracy - specifically conspiring to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power. The Justice Department will never stop working to defend the democracy to which all Americans are entitled."

Two former leaders of the Proud Boys organization were sentenced 01 September 2023 on multiple felony charges related to their roles in the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Their actions disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress that was in the process of ascertaining and counting the electoral votes necessary to certify the 2020 presidential election. Ethan Nordean, 32, of Auburn, Washington, was sentenced to 18 years in prison and 36 months of supervised release. Dominic Pezzola, 45, of Rochester, New York, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 36 months of supervised release.

A jury convicted Nordean, Pezzola and three other co-defendants on May 4, of multiple felonies, including obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to prevent members of Congress or federal officers from discharging their duties before and during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Defendant Nordean was previously convicted of seditious conspiracy.

According to court documents and evidence presented during the trial, the Proud Boys organization played a significant and often violent role in Washington, D.C., rallies in November and December 2020. In the aftermath of that violent conduct, Nordean and other co-defendants served as members and leaders of a special chapter of the Proud Boys known as the "Ministry of Self Defense."

Beginning after Dec. 19, 2020, Nordean, Pezzola and other co-defendants conspired to prevent, hinder and delay the certification of the Electoral College vote and to oppose by force the authority of the government of the United States. In the days leading to Jan. 6, Nordean and other leaders of the Ministry of Self-Defense hand-selected co-defendant Pezzola and others known as "rally boys" to participate in the attack on the Capitol that day. This group established a chain of command, chose a time and place for their attack and intentionally recruited others who would follow their top-down leadership and who were prepared to engage in physical violence if necessary.