PHILADELPHIA – As Donald Trump once again tells his supporters that he can only lose on Tuesday if there is massive voter fraud and as he ramps up violent rhetoric about Democrats and other “enemies,” members of the far-right group seeking more “boots on the ground” put ” than anyone else at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, say they are mobilizing.
The last time Trump tried to overturn his election loss, the Proud Boys played a crucial role, springing into action on January 6, just weeks after Trump gave the group a major recruiting boost by telling it to “stand back and to stand by’ during an election campaign. presidential debate. The group, which “desired violence and organized for action,” sent members to the Capitol to act as “Donald Trump’s army,” federal prosecutors later said. Several Proud Boys leaders were ultimately convicted of seditious conspiracy and remain in prison, including former chairman Enrique Tarrio, who is serving 22 years, the longest sentence imposed on a January 6 defendant.
But the decentralized, all-male far-right group remains active across the country, with some members openly making plans to get involved in Tuesday’s election as Trump closes his campaign by talking about the shooting through the media; calls his political opponents ‘evil’, ‘dangerous’ and ‘the enemy within’; and spreads more unsubstantiated predictions about election fraud.
At least 30 of the 34 active and public Telegram channels run by Proud Boys chapters across the country have again rallied support for Trump and posted pro-Trump content since early October, according to an analysis by Advance Democracy, a non-profit -profit research. organization. Many groups are posting memes and content suggesting that the 2024 election will be stolen from Trump.
Two Proud Boys chapters, both based in Ohio, say they will watch the election on Election Day, according to reports reviewed by NBC News. The Proud Boys of Columbus recently posted a claim that they had signed up members as poll watchers and poll watchers.
“The task is simply too important to be entrusted to mainstream standards,” read a post reposted Monday, “so it was an all-hands-on-deck effort.”
Another Proud Boys group in Ohio recently reported that it was “watching the polls everywhere” ahead of Election Day.
“Locked, loaded and ready for insidious voter fraud,” one account wrote Sunday before adding an anti-gay slur. “Stand back and stick to f—–s.”
Three other Proud Boys Telegram channels elsewhere in the country also shared an image of a masked man holding a gun with the words “FREE MEN DO NOT OBEY PUBLIC SERVICES,” the Advance Democracy report found.
Proud Boys chapters and other active militia groups have made no explicit public calls to interfere in Tuesday’s election as of Monday, according to Advance Democracy and an NBC News review of social media posts. And it’s not clear whether claims that they are watching the polls or embedded as election volunteers will lead to any action in the real world.
But Proud Boys members are clearly active. NBC News saw men dressed in the Proud Boys uniform — black polos with gold collars — in a section at a Trump rally on Sunday, but it was not clear whether the people had previously been identified as men associated with the group. NBC News observed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., nearby and avoided taking photos with the men.
The Proud Boys chapters are decentralized, but since January 6 they have taken up other right-wing issues. Members of the group have shown up at school board meetings with library books, anti-LGBTQ demonstrations and anti-immigration protests, and while weakened, Proud Boys could still organize around the election.
What happens depends largely on how Trump performs. Eight years ago, during Trump’s 2016 run for president, the founder of another right-wing organization announced a plan to go “undercover” at polling places, saying he would go “incognito” and “blend in.” the public.
Trump won in 2016. Four years later, founder Stewart Rhodes and his group, the Oath Keepers, participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy and is serving 18 years behind bars.
The Proud Boys messages were sent via Telegram, which has become the platform of choice for far-right groups where they can freely distribute their content. It has become a hotbed of election misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Federal authorities have been quick to suppress disinformation from foreign actors this cycle, but they face limitations—of both law and tradition—when it comes to combating disinformation coming from American-based political entities , and federal authorities are merely playing a role. limited role in monitoring elections.
Trump — who was indicted by a federal grand jury and accused of using false claims of voter fraud in an attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss — has a long history of making false claims about the election, even tweeting after the loss to Mitt Romney in 2012 that Americans needed “a revolution” and that Americans needed to “fight like crazy,” the phrase he would use on January 6.
In the run-up to Tuesday, he has used increasingly authoritarian language that conjures violent images: He told Capitol attack conspiracy theorist and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that Jan. 6 Committee Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney had no such ‘war hawk’ if she had. guns “pointed at her face” and said he “wouldn’t mind so much” if a theoretical attempted murderer “blasted through the fake news.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
