Proud Boys | |
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Founder | Gavin McInnes[1] |
Leader | Enrique Tarrio[1] |
Foundation | September 2016[1] |
Country | United States (active)[1] Canada (dissolved May 2021)[1] |
Allegiance | President Donald Trump[1] |
Motives |
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Active regions | United States |
Ideology | |
Political position | Far-right[1] |
Major actions | |
Status | Active |
Allies | Patriot Prayer[citation needed] Oath Keepers[11] Three Percenters[12] |
Opponents | Antifa[13] |
Designated as a terrorist group by | Canada[14] New Zealand[15] |
Part of a series on |
Neo-fascism |
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Politics portal |
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Terrorism and political violence |
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The Proud Boys is a North American far-right, neo-fascist militant organization that promotes and engages in political violence.[1][16][17] The group's leaders have been convicted of violently opposing the federal government of the United States, including its constitutionally prescribed transfer of presidential power.[18] It has been called a street gang[19][20] and was designated as a terrorist group in Canada[14][21] and New Zealand.[15] The Proud Boys are opposed to left-wing and progressive groups and support President Donald Trump.[1][17] While Proud Boys leadership has denied being a white supremacist organization, the group and some of its members have been connected to white supremacist events, ideologies, and other white-power groups throughout its existence.
The group originated in the far-right Taki's Magazine in 2016 under the leadership of the Vice Media co-founder and the former commentator Gavin McInnes,[1] taking its name from the song "Proud of Your Boy" from the Walt Disney Company’s musical Aladdin from 2011.[22] Although the Proud Boys emerged as part of the alt-right,[1] McInnes distanced himself from the movement in early 2017, saying the Proud Boys were alt-lite while the alt-right's focus was on race.[23] Donald Trump's comment, "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by", during a presidential debate in September 2020 prior to the 2020 U.S. presidential election was credited with increasing interest and recruitment.[24] After the remark caused an outcry for its apparent endorsement, Trump condemned the Proud Boys while saying he did not "know much about" them.[25][26]
According to the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism the group believes that traditional masculinity and Western culture are under siege, using "Western chauvinism" as euphemism for the white genocide conspiracy theory.[5] Members have participated in overtly racist events and events centered around fascist, anti-left, and anti-socialist violence.[5] The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has called the group an "alt-right fight club" and a hate group that uses rhetorical devices to obscure its motives.[17][27][28][29] The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) described the Proud Boys as "extremist conservative" and "alt lite", "overtly Islamophobic and misogynistic", "transphobic and anti-immigration", "all too willing to embrace racists, antisemites and bigots of all kinds", and cites the group's promotion and use of violence as a core tactic.[30]
The group has been banned from multiple social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,[1][31] and YouTube.[32] In February 2021 the U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment of members for conspiracy related to the 2021 United States Capitol attack, and the Canadian arm of the group folded after being designated a terrorist organization.[1][9][33][34][35]
www.adl.org
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).West-2021
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Some were aligned with the neofascist Proud Boys ...*Bremner, Jade (September 7, 2021). "What does the Proud Boys rooster symbol mean and what are the group's other secret symbols?". The Independent. Archived from the original on May 7, 2022. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
The Proud Boys is a neo-fascist, pro-Trump, male group...*Martin Belam; Adam Gabbatt (September 30, 2020). "Proud Boys: who are the far-right group that backs Donald Trump?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on October 9, 2020. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
...the US neo-fascist group the Proud Boys*HoSang, Daniel (2019). Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity. University of Minnesota Press. p. 2. ISBN 9781452960340.
[...] groups such as the protofascist Proud Boys [...].*Kutner, Samantha (2020). "Swiping Right: The Allure of Hyper Masculinity and Cryptofascism for Men Who Join the Proud Boys" (PDF). International Centre for Counter-Terrorism: 1. JSTOR resrep25259. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 19, 2023. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
Conclusion: Proud Boys represent a new face of far-right extremism. [...] This study explored the pull factors surrounding recruitment, the ways members describe precarity, and the communicative features that mark the group as a violent, cryptofascist extremist organization.Men only: *Sernau, Scott (2019). Social Inequality in a Global Age. SAGE Publications. ISBN 9781544309309.
The Proud Boys, an all-male neo-fascist group [...].*Álvarez, Rebecca (2020). Vigilante Gender Violence: Social Class, the Gender Bargain, and Mob Attacks on Women Worldwide. Routledge. ISBN 978-1000174137.
The Proud Boys are a neo-fascist masculinist hate group.*"'Proud Boys' back in Canada military after crashing indigenous ceremony". BBC News. August 31, 2017. Archived from the original on June 27, 2018. Retrieved July 21, 2018. Political violence and militancy: *Reid, Shannon E.; Valasik, Matthew; Bagavathi, Arunkumar (2020), Melde, Chris; Weerman, Frank (eds.), "Examining the Physical Manifestation of Alt-Right Gangs: From Online Trolling to Street Fighting" (PDF), Gangs in the Era of Internet and Social Media, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 105–134, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-47214-6_6, ISBN 978-3-030-47214-6, S2CID 226436096, archived (PDF) from the original on November 12, 2020, retrieved April 25, 2022 *"Proud Boys". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on October 16, 2018. Retrieved October 16, 2018. *Lowry, Rich (October 19, 2018). "The Poisonous Allure of Right-Wing Violence". National Review. Archived from the original on October 22, 2018. Retrieved November 13, 2018.
McInnes is open about his glorification of violence. In a speech, he described a clash with Antifa outside a talk he gave at NYU last year: 'My guys are left to fight. And here's the crucial part: We do. And we beat the crap out of them.' He related what a Proud Boy who got arrested told him afterward: 'It was really, really fun.' According to McInnes: 'Violence doesn't feel good. Justified violence feels great. And fighting solves everything.'
Marantz-2017
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Morlin-2017
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Wendling-2020
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).