Suddenly they stood against the wall of the auditorium in New Hanover County, North Carolina: seven masked men in the black and yellow uniforms of the paramilitary Proud Boys. It was a balmy evening in November and ironically the men came with their neckerchiefs in front of their faces to demonstrate against the mandatory wearing of face masks in the school. But the irony escaped most of those present. They were simply intimidated and that is exactly what the Proud Boys and other militias are after.
Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters and other paramilitary organizations played a prominent role in the storming of the Capitol on Thursday a year ago. Remarkable, precisely because this time they were hardly or not at all present in their ‘uniforms’. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio had warned members beforehand: “We will be showing up with unprecedented numbers on January 6, but with a surprise: we will not be wearing our trusty black and yellow. We will come incognito and will spread out in smaller units across central Washington DC.”
If you looked around closely that day, you could see the signs in the crowd. Literally: the militiamen wear all kinds of paraphernalia with which they identify.
The Three Percenters—named for the belief that in the 1776 War of Independence, only 3 percent of the American population actually fought the British—have an insignia with the Roman numeral III, Oath Keepers have one with the words ‘Not on our watch’.
You could also recognize them because they were clustered together, with their camouflage clothing, sturdy lace-up shoes and headphones in the ear. It is clear from the charges and testimony in several lawsuits about the storming that the militiamen had prepared well that day and jointly wanted to prevent their president, Donald Trump, from having to resign after his election defeat.
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Of the more than 700 people charged with the Capitol storming, dozens were members of militias, the prosecution said. Some have confirmed that. A few have also pleaded guilty and repented. This raises the question of whether the organizations involved might have suffered a blow after January 6.
Sparkling like never before
No, says Heidi Beirich in an email to NRC. He has been researching extremist militias for years and is a co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “Many experts had expected that the arrests would lead to the disintegration of those organizations, or at least to a weakening. But the opposite has happened. They are buzzing online like never before.”
Historian Kathleen Belew, author of Bring the War Home (2018), wrote in Thursday The Washington Post that for the militias, “January 6 was intended as a moment for recruitment and radicalization, an effort to familiarize and involve people with the militant right.”
In the Trump years, the militias have grown like weeds, Beirich says, but she adds that it is difficult to estimate their size: the mainly white, mainly male members and sympathizers of the paramilitary organizations are mainly active online. “A member list of the Oath Keepers has been leaked, showing that they would have had about 35,000 members last year.”
According to Beirich, the police and the judiciary are doing their best to crack down on the groups. “They are watching them aggressively.” But the armed militia constitutes a category cherished in the US Constitution—it is “necessary to the security of a free state,” the Second Amendment states—and therefore cannot be banned.
It is no coincidence that members of the militias have increasingly turned up in local demonstrations in schools and town halls in recent months, according to Beirich. In Downers Grove, Illinois, they protested against “pornographic” books in the school library, in Nashua, New Hampshire, against classes focusing on structural inequality in society.
At some meetings, according to the local sheriff, they remained “calm and polite,” at others they were led away from the school. But everywhere they stated that they wanted to stand up “for freedom”, “for the constitution”, “for patriots”.
“It seems they have changed their tactics,” Beirich writes. “Away from Washington and the national stage, more involved in local politics. I don’t think they do that to stay out of sight of the police. I think at that level they can find allies and influence more easily.”
Beirich, like Belew, warns of the impact of the militia. “They are dangerous because they don’t shy away from violence. But more dangerous, I think, is that the Republican Party, which is undermining the electoral system, is collaborating with these groups. If the 2024 elections are again contested, I see the militias playing a dubious role in the social unrest that will then be inevitable.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 7 January 2022
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of January 7, 2022
