Proud Boys are a National Political Violence Gang.
By: Johnny Silvercloud
Tags: Right Wing Extremism, Politics, Proud Boys, Gangster Culture, Right Wing Terrorism

Proud Boys are a National Political Violence Gang.

Political Thugs. GOP-endorsed, Republican Party-approved fascist thugs.

Another MAGA March

On December 12th, 2020, thousands of Trump supporters showed up in Washington, D.C., again, this time to support Donald Trump in his moments of failure. In regards to the Electoral College, electors meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. That’s December 14th, 2020. This right-wing rally in Washington is only after weeks of electoral suppression-intimidation from Donald Trump and his Republican acolytes. His attempt to cheat democratic systems long after voter suppression-intimidation has failed.

When democracy stops serving conservatism, conservatives will not abandon conservativism — conservatives will abandon democracy.

“Only Legal Votes Matter” | 12 Dec 2020 | Photo Credit: Johnny Silvercloud

Thousands of Trump supporters showed up in Washington, D.C.

Sweet racist old white ladies struck again, smiling, with a pathologically ignorant sweetness that would put Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory to shame.

“All Lives Matter, you know?” “That has to be proven, ma’am.” Baffling silence molested her tongue, as words feared leaving her mouth after saying that phrase within my presence.

Her silence? A dear cousin to the Silence Black people receives in regards to Justice speaking in our United States.

Many of them, of course, were random persons and families who want to merely believe. Many were regular Americans who wanted to believe what Trump says, “the vote was rigged. Voter fraud. He won but was cheated. Unfair.”

Of course, many Trump supporters continue to take Trump’s word as gospel, believing the lies as truth. Others were only there for the moment. When I saw one guy with a “stop the steal” sign, I asked him:

Johnny S: “Hey, do you really think he didn’t lose OR are you just living in the spirit of the moment?” Trumpian: “Just the spirit of the moment!”

“Just the spirit of the moment!” | 12 Dec 2020 | Photo Credit: Johnny Silvercloud

As bold as Trumpians are, I have no reason to doubt his answer. It would be fair to say that not all literally believe Trump’s lies and are here in Washington, D.C. for the moment. Still, he supports Trump’s assault on democracy, however tacit his endorsement is.

The very fact that some know Trump is lying yet co-sign his every move here might be more frightening than the true believers.

Knowledge is knowing Frankenstein isn’t really the name of the monster; it’s the name of the scientist. Wisdom is knowing who the real monster is — the freaking scientist, playing with unnatural things, reanimating the dead.

Thousands of Americans showed up in D.C. to reanimate the dead.

Proud Boys in D.C.

There were numerous political violence gangs in Washington on the 12th. Many were Three Percenters. The more prominent gang, however, were the Proud Boys. In wearing their colors, which seems to appropriate the original colors of Black Lives Matter — black and yellow — I estimated roughly 600+ Proud Boys were in the District of Colombia. I might be wrong, that’s how estimates are, but it is still a lot.

“Forgive Always, Forgive Often.” That’s the answer I got from the comically charming ‘Fabio Proud Boy’ in the middle, when I asked “what is FAFO?” “F*** Around, Find Out.” | 12 Dec 2020 | Photo Credit: Johnny Silvercloud

Proud Boys (PB), while having national leadership, seems to be a charter-based organization, which leaves various chapters to have their own personalities. The branches seem to be state-based, as all those from the same state sought the most uniformity among themselves and stuck to their groups as if they were companies or platoons in military order.

The uniformity among chapters can get creative. New Hamshire Proud Boys, for example, all were yellow quilts (and wearing quilts properly, if you know the meaning). Some had the Cobra Kai logo modified for their use. Proud Boys all wore black and yellow and varied between polo shirts and printed t-shirts.

Some had various patches that indicate a ranking system, such as “RWDS,” which stands for “Right Wing Death Squad.” Others indicated which Degree they were, such as 4th Degree. I’ll touch on these later.

During the daytime, Proud Boys were surprisingly friendly (might be the fact that I’m a military vet). I believe that Proud Boys love military vets for the same reason all other right-wing violence/terrorism groups do — the pre-existing experience of killing, self-discipline, and violence, expert knowledge of leadership, insurgency, and warfare.

I assess that the Proud Boys were very friendly (during daytime hours), ultimately due to an understanding of how important public relations (PR) are for fascism. As even the United States Army has a Public Affairs office, it makes sense that the PB were cognizant of public appearance as not to embarrass their name and title while for many cameras were rolling.

In asking various Proud Boys questions, remarkably, they agree with Black Lives Matter protesters and organizers as individuals. A few questions I asked:

Do you believe that the police should be able to shoot me (Black person), murder me, blow my brains out, kill me, and skate/evade the law? Do you believe that the police should be able to murder me (Black person) with immunity to law and proper accountability? Suppose I (Black person) were to be unjustly murdered by a police officer. Should that police officer be able to not only evade law and justice but became a crowd-sourced millionaire due to murdering me? Should police murder an innocent person and then demonize that innocent person by citing possible past criminal occurrences that has nothing to do with the murderous police encounter?

All Proud Boy affiliates answered these questions, passing the racial justice quiz with flying colors. The crazy part? I genuinely have no reason to doubt their answers. Each one I asked, really do not believe police should have the ability to kill unjustly, and then keep their career, evade law, or stack money like racial bounties.

Some Proud Boys like this fellow pictured here even stated a difference between Black Lives Matter and “ANTIFA.” The man then spoke on how just BLM is and how ANTIFA is not (flawed logic still on ANTIFA, but let him have it for now). He told me, “be careful of ANTIFA here because they would punch a nice man like you. Be careful out here.” This man is probably the nicest, sweetest PB affiliate you can ever meet. The problem with the matter’s complexity was by nightfall when the Proud Boys were marauding around town to engage in political violence and thuggery. I assess that “Mike” here (I’m just calling him Mike) really wouldn’t care to remember me from earlier that day had I been a target. I assess that regardless of how friendly and sweet Mike is during the day as an individual when he’s roaming the city in his group, his group identity takes over. He will target, violate, and assault anyone his group decides to. This is how fascism works; Mike isn’t a man with a leader’s personality and will do what the group is doing. If I was the target of his group’s violence by night, I assess that even if he failed to join the attack, he wouldn’t stop it from happening either. That’s the point; fascist people who are friends of yours or friendly to you WILL NOT stop fascists from coming for you. | 12 Dec 2020 | Photo Credit: Johnny Silvercloud

The underlying problem here is that most of the American public is unwilling to engage in critical thinking to evaluate the organization concerning these topics because most would prefer to obfuscate the individual identity with the group’s identity. Bob or Mike, who happens to be a Proud Boy, doesn’t stand in for the group identity who explicitly aims for street violence with whomever they deem their enemies.

Let’s Talk About their Designated Enemies

Members of the DMV public who, in Black Bloc, are known as “ANTIFA” in the minds of right-wing media observers. ANTIFA is short for anti-fascist, or anti-fascism. | 12 Dec 2020 | Photo Credit: Johnny Silvercloud

“F*** ANTIFA!!!” is a rallying cry of Proud Boys, something I heard a lot of, yelled in unison at Freedom Plaza where the main MAGA rally took place.

As President Trump took causes towards many fake, counterfeit, nonreal designated enemies (such as nonexistent caravans, objective media platforms, or Black athletes and other civil rights protesters), so does Proud Boys. “ANTIFA” is the primary designated enemy of the state, according to Proud Boys and modern American conservative lore.

I cannot pretend their designation of threat hold merit; ANTIFA is short for anti-fascism or anti-fascist, and from there, any person who opened up a socio-psychology book understands that negative identities are not real identities. Thus, anti-fascism — which is a position on fascism — exists only because fascism exists.

If you get rid of fascism — the stuff that Republicans, conservatives, and Trumpians are doing — then anti-fascism ceases to exist. That’s how negative identities work. Negative identities do not exist in a void; they need something to bank off of, run counter to. Kind of like how counter-terrorism exists only because terrorism exists. If terrorism ceases to exist, so does counter-terrorism. Anti-smoking campaigns only exist because smoking exists. If there’s no smoking, then anti-smoking campaigns cease to exist. Need I go on, or you get it now? Good. It’s not that hard to understand.

ANTIFA is not a group to the extent to which conservatives and Proud Boys describe. There is no leadership, no funding, no political figures validating punching Nazis or fascists in the face (which can be interpreted as a damning conviction of American politics itself). I find a strange pattern in conservative media (which is effectively conservative disinformation consumption). There’s a preference for specific names and titles that rob the meaning from something and then demonize what is named. For example, in calling the Affordable Care Act “Obamacare,” conservatives diminish the actual policy’s purpose, attach a different meaning to attack and demonize, and work from there. The propaganda tactic dilutes, silences, obscures and renders invisible real, actual meanings of things only to immediately anathematize them. The same proves true in infinitely calling anything concerning anti-fascism “ANTIFA.” In not saying anti-fascism, the logical understanding of “being against fascism” is obscured. This is also why many republicans, Trumpians, and other conservatives can say (albeit with profound ignorance), “ANTIFA is the real fascists,” without blinking.

This propaganda tactic is technically a poisoning the well fallacy. Poisoning the well (a smear tactic in political theater) is a rhetorical tactic and logical fallacy that uses the association of negative emotions to distract a subject from actual evidence in an argument, in this case, a fact of how one exists. As an Argumentum ad hominem fallacy attacks the person, the functionality of poisoning the well is that of a landmine; step in position, and the explosion kills you. In this case, it is killing logic and reason. Poisoning the well is also an appeal to hate.

I’ve been covering these things for a long time. “ANTIFA” as an identity isn’t exactly the scary black-bloc dressed folks as conservative disinformation campaigns state. Proud Boys would punch and beat up this young beautiful woman, just for standing up against their fascist movement. | 18 Aug 2018 | Photo Credit: Johnny Silvercloud

ANTIFA, much like all of which Trump designates as threats and enemies for his cult following, is a fake threat. Not real or genuine. It’s one big strawman argument.

To even give ANTIFA an identity in its black-clad glory, it’s all just a bunch of college-aged folk who care about democracy, care about people, care about America. Many are squishy non-combative people who don’t roid-rage or train to exist as a militia, as Proud Boys do. Most are in college with knowledge of what late-stage capitalism means. Some are anarchists, who don’t care for order, group identity, or leadership at all. It’s a fake threat. As much as I hate to use this word, it is correct to state that Anti-fascism as a literal, credible threat to the United States is a hoax.

The concept of Black Lives Matter to the Proud Boys is nearly just as simple; any Black protester. As a matter of fact, from Proud Boys, it pretty much goes like this:

•Black protester = BLM

•White Protester = ANTIFA

There’s no collective grasp of what these group identities really are. Just abbreviated propagandized think, with minor doublespeak concerning Black Lives Matter, being that on an individual level, one can extract logical grasp of police abuse of authority, monopoly of violence, and lack of accountability. Emphasis on the distinction between individual personal identities of few Proud Boys versus the collective group identity of the Proud Boys as a whole.

Facts on Proud Boys as a Gang