This Week in Fascism #135: Proud Boys Split Into Factions, Resistance to TPUSA, Report from Ohio

Welcome back fellow antifascists!

It’s been way too long since this column last came out – but with a new year and a growing need for an antifascist clearinghouse of action, information, and beyond – we felt it was time for this column to make a comeback. In this week’s installment, you’ll find a breakdown of current news, links to hard-hitting research by antifascist crews across the so-called US, an action roundup, an interview and deep-dive on the current state of the Proud Boys, and much more!

There’s a lot to cover, so let’s dive right in!

News

“Boneface” Embarrasses Blood Tribe, National Justice Party Falls Apart as Rank-n-File Attack Leadership for Grifting

Over the past year, a constellation of neo-Nazi groups and networks have emerged following the breakdown of the Alt-Right. One that has generated the most headlines is Blood Tribe, sort of the straight to DVD version of the National Socialist Movement (NSM). The group recently got some bad press after it turns out that one of its members, “Boneface,” used to sell meth and also lied about being in the Azov Battalion.

Blood Tribe also pulled out a a land project in Maine after local citizens properly recoiled in disgust. The group has crossover with networks like White Lives Matter and its leader, Christopher Pohlhaus, is also involved in the Asatru Folk Assembly. Despite the near cartoon theatrics of the group and its embrace of extreme imagery, we shouldn’t doubt the ability of its members to carry out hardcore acts of violence; one was just sentenced for firebombing a church for hosting a drag event in Ohio.

In other news, the island of unwanted incel fuck-bois made up of Richard Spencer’s leftovers, neo-Nazi podcast “stars,” and reject Daily Stormer trolls known as the “National Justice Party” has now collapsed amidst infighting and accusations of grifting and theft. Shocking. For a peek into the meltdown, check out this archived fash blog post attacking the NJP leadership and project as a whole, here.

Finally – there’s recently been a leak of data of everyone who recently bought records from a major white supremacist distributor. Check out info on the leaks here.

Moms for Sex Tapes

In gender fascist news, candidates backed by Mom’s For Liberty lost a majority of their races in a recent wave of elections. The organization has also been hit with a recent sex scandal and is facing a decline in numbers of active members. Chris Rufo, who helped push far-Right panic over everything from Critical Race Theory to drag queens, has now been linked to “race realist” publications trafficking in pseudo-scientific white supremacy.

The false claim that “antifa” somehow tricked thousands of Trump supporters into storming the US capitol on January 6th has recently taken a hit, as several of those claimed to be ‘antifa’ have in fact been exposed as hardcore Trump supporters.

Speaking of Trump, his rhetoric has continued to embrace a drive toward outright dictatorship. Meanwhile, Project 2025, “an initiative of the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank that has helped staff and set the agenda for every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan,” continues to push for a Trumpian takeover of the American state. Other groups closely aligned with Trump, such as Turning Point USA are also pushing outright white supremacist attacks on MLK and the civil rights movement, with TPUSA leader Charlie Kirk leading the charge.

Far-Right Terror

Far-Right violence remains constant. In Burlington, Vermont, three Palestinian students were shot and injured by a far-Right gunman. In Austin as this column was being finished, a Palestinian-American man was stabbed by an attacker who shouted racial slurs, after the man was leaving a pro-Palestine rally. In Pennsylvania, Justin Mohn, is under arrest for murdering and beheading his father, who he decried as a “traitor” for reportedly working for the federal government. Mohn reportedly recorded a YouTube video featuring his father’s severed head in a bag, and then went on to ramble against “woke mobs,” Black Lives Matter, antifa, Biden, and immigrants – calling for far-Right militias to rise up.

GOP Plays Chicken with Federal Government at the Border, Refugees and Asylum Seekers Caught in Middle as Far-Right Tries to Mobilize

Tensions remain high along the US/Mexico border, as Texas Governor Greg Abott continues to push back against the authority of the Biden administration, as Border Patrol and the Texas National Guard jostle over authority of a small park next to a river crossing which Abott has placed deadly barriers to those seeking to cross. This situation recently led to the deaths of a mother and her children who were attempting to cross the Rio Grande. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is pushing to “work” with the GOP for a bi-partisan deal which would crack down on asylum seekers while also continuing to funnel billions towards the ongoing war effort. With dozens of Republican governors vowing to support Abott’s “fight” against the authority of the federal government and Trump cheering them on, sections of the far-Right have also pushed for a “convoy” to head to the border in support of GOP efforts. While the far-Right convoy failed to gather the mass numbers that it promised and largely was racked by extreme disorganization and infighting, hundreds still rallied in support of increased border militarization and ongoing attacks on migrants and asylum seekers. As WSWS reported of recent far-Right protests:

The governors’ appearance in Eagle Pass coincided with the final day of the fascist “Take Our Borders Back” convoy. At the same time that the governors, against the backdrop of National Guard soldiers and military equipment, were delivering anti-immigrant screeds in front of the cameras, a few hundred fascist members of the convoy backing the anti-immigrant campaign massed in Eagle Pass; San Ysidro, California; and Yuma, Arizona.

On-the-ground journalists reported that several hundred fascists, including Proud Boys and QAnon fanatics, descended on Shelby Park as part of the convoy. In response, local residents held a rally in San Juan Plaza to denounce Abbott and the militarization of the border. One resident told reporters that the arrival of the convoy was the first time she felt unsafe in the community. Many residents pointed out that they were more afraid of right-wing militias and violent Trump supporters than they were of immigrants.

Be sure to watch IGD for updates.

Research Roundup

Antifascist crews have recently published some important research pieces; here’s a rundown of some of them. In Atlanta, antifascists have a new expose on members of Patriot Front and other neo-Nazis buying land in eastern Tennessee. From the article:

A self-proclaimed “tribe” of racist heathens is building a compound on a 122-acre property in Tellico Plains, eastern Tennessee. This group overlaps with Patriot Front (PF), a fascist organization with members nationwide, and the “Church of Aryanity,” a racist cult that refers to Adolf Hitler as “the Great One.” The leader of the Tennessee “tribe” is Brian Culpepper, who spent a decade in the white supremacist National Socialist Movement (NSM) and was its PR Director for several years.

Although the white power compound is a concern for our whole region, eastern Tennessee residents will be the most immediately impacted by the racist hub, especially given plans to host large gatherings on the land. If you live in southeast Tennessee or have friends or family there, please share our documentation. We hope that locals, community groups, and churches speak up, sending a strong  message that residents reject Nazism and will stand by each other.

If you have further information on the “Aryan Tribal Land” and its residents, please get in touch. We are always interested in tips about members of Patriot Front and other racist groups operating in our region.

Speaking of Patriot Front, NYC Antifa has an update on Patriot Front member and “network director” Paul Michael Gancarz and his ongoing involvement in US Jiu-Jitsu competitions, along with some action items. From the article:

On January 20th, 2022, NYC Antifa, in collaboration with Antifa Seven Hills, exposed Paul Michael Gancarz as a fascist and Patriot Front’s “Network Director” for the region covering Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland, and Delaware. Gancarz is originally from New York City. He continues to have strong ties to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where his family lives. At the time of our original article, Gancarz was living in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He still likely lives in that state.

Paul Gancarz’s involvement in Far-Right politics goes back years and well beyond Patriot Front. On August 12, 2017, he attended the deadly white nationalist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia as a Proud Boy. In December 2019, Gancarz and Proud Boy member Simon Ming Yui Lee (AKA Simon “Lee Greenwood”) scrawled swastikas outside of a Greenpoint, Brooklyn restaurant. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Please see our original article for a full accounting of Gancarz’s activities.

Since our original exposé of Gancarz, he lost his lucrative job as an engineer on a critical infrastructure project for the state of Virginia and was booted from his BJJ gym where he was training for competitions. Gancarz now tries to stay anonymous online and in his personal life. Because there is an ongoing civil rights lawsuit against him, we’ve noticed that he has returned to masking at Patriot Front actions and other events. Patriot Front blurs his face when they release images of their events.

NYC Antifa goes on to call on people to:

Please respectfully contact FUJI BJJ and ask them to sever all ties with Paul Michael Gancarz and Ian Michael Elliott, as well as Patria Gloria. Ask that they be stripped of any medals conferred upon them.

As of January 2024, FUJI BJJ is under new ownership. They state they want a “fresh rebrand” and to “bring Jiu Jitsu to as many people as possible.” There is nothing fresher than kicking fascists and racists out of your spaces and nothing better to bring people into a sport than to make sure your events are fascist-free.

For more info go here. Meanwhile, antifascists in Asheville, North Carolina also report that the same group of neo-Nazis in Patriot Front are coming to Asheville on February 10th for a competition. They write:

Ian Michael Elliott and Paul Michael Gancarz have both been exposed as violent fascists and members of the white supremacist group, Patriot Front. As NYC Antifa laid out in their recent article, both Gancarz and Elliott were documented last month participating in another Fuji BJJ event in Allentown, Pennsylvania under their first and middles names, “Paul Michael” and “Ian Michael”, and under the team name ‘Patria Gloria’. In this week’s Atlanta Antifascists article – detailing the Nazi cultist land project in Eastern Tennessee Ian Michael Elliott is a part of – they also update the current Telegram username that Ian Elliott is using as “Brother V”.

In another nazi Telegram chat we’ve provided a screenshot of, we can see that Ian Elliott is planning to attend the Asheville Winter Championship event by Fuji BJJ on Saturday, February 10th. In this chat, Ian Elliott states he’s planning to bring “10 guys” to Asheville for this event, and is openly inviting others from this nazi chat group to come along with them.

We’re calling on all community members to respectfully reach out to FUJI BJJ and ask them to sever all ties with Paul Michael Gancarz, Ian Michael Elliott, Kieran Morris, and Stephen Trimboli. Ask that Paul Michael Gancarz and Ian Michael Elliott be stripped of any medals conferred upon them.

The Asheville event is billed as a family friendly, inclusive environment. The age range for participation in the event is 4 years old and up. There should be no world in which it is acceptable for children, friends, family, or neighbors to compete along side organized fascists who spend their lives devoted to and planning to carry out genocide. This event is happening at T.C Roberson High School. Will we stand for Fuji BJJ and T.C. Roberson standing idly by while a group of fascists come to pollute our spaces? No we won’t!

For info on how to take action by contacting the Buncombe County Schools’ Superintendent’s Office, go here.

Antifascists in the bay area of California with Bay 161 have been hard at work exposing a variety of neo-Nazis involved in the White Lives Matter network and its crossover with the Goyim Defense League, Active Clubs, the Asatru Folk Assembly, and white supremacist skinhead gangs. For a deep dive, check out their most recent expose here.

Colorado Springs Antifascists have a new report on Ryan Hatfield, a key player in the group Atomwaffen, which has now splintered into various factions, most notably the website, “American Futurist.”

Late Night Anti-Fascists has a new report on a leading members of the Groyper movement, a rebranding of the Alt-Right led by neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes. From one report:

Meet racist groyper Christian Conner Balanda aka “Michigan Zoomer” from Ada Township, Michigan! This #J6 participant was one of Nick Fuentes’s “top guys”, was involved in the political campaign for Rep. John Gibbs, and is now a “Director of Youth Ministry” in Grand Rapids.

Christian Balanda, operating under the pseudonym “Michigan Zoomer,” fervently identified as a committed groyper within the America First movement. For those unacquainted, “Groypers” constitute followers of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, characterized by racist, antisemitic, and misogynistic beliefs. On the digital front, Mich Zoomer actively promoted figures such as Nick Fuentes and Anthime Gionet (Baked Alaska), alongside other far-right political personalities. Offline, Christian Balanda has traveled to attend numerous America First events, and is fairly easy to spot due to his tall stature.

With all of the racism Balanda displays online, it seems pretty clear to us that his political campaign work for John Gibbs was part of the “groyper” infiltration of mainstream politics that Nick Fuentes regularly encourages.  According to Balanda,  they “ARE INFILTRATING AT EVERY LEVEL”.

It is also extremely concerning to us that Christian Balanda works with minors and women at his current job as a Director of Youth Ministry, given his misogyny, hate, and track record of adamantly supporting Holocaust-denying white supremacists.

Another unmasks “Hitler fan Saran Sankar aka Ethan Stykes of the Washington DC & Baltimore area, the person behind the 10k+ follower WeCrusaders account.” New Jersey Hatewatch has also unmasked Evan Wendell Plumlee of Feasterville-Trevose, as a White Lives Matter leader that was also involved in the attempted pro-Trump coup in DC on January 6th. Finally, in the Pacific Northwest, Corvallis Against Fascism just dropped their annual Field Guide, which can be viewed here.

Action: Neo-Nazis Run off Ventura Streets, TPUSA Faces Resistance, Antifascists Confront Proud Boys in Ohio

Last September in Ventura, California, locals stopped an attempted march of neo-Nazis part of the “Clockwork Crew” from taking place. As Left-Coast Right Watch reported:

The Nazis, as per usual, had GoPro cameras and their phones out for filming any inevitable confrontations. But once they were outnumbered, they weren’t so eager to pick fights. They retreated the long way around the block. About ten people, Jones included, followed them back towards the beer garden. “It was really only about 10-12 people chasing them but there were plenty of other people on the street yelling at them throughout the incident,” Jones said. The Nazis had a banner with them, but likely never got an opportunity to unfurl it during their retreat. At the beer garden, police intervened. Police detained the Nazis for about 15-20 minutes but didn’t make them take off their face coverings or identify themselves.

The Nazis themselves were part of Clockwork Crew, an “active club” that was formerly called Crew 562 (the area code for Long Beach.) Members sometimes participate in stunts with in the neo-Nazi Jackass-wannabe livestreamers Goyim Defense League. Its leader and another member were recently identified as US military members. The group also has ties to the “Church of Aryanity” cult. “Active clubs” are modeled after Rise Above Movement (RAM), a Southern California-based neo-Nazi gang that focuses on fitness and street fighting—or, rather, filming and selectively editing themselves working out and brawling as a recruitment tool. “Their goal of marching down the length Main Street was stopped one half of a block in,” Jones concluded.

Silver-spoon trust-fund fascist Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA has continued to face resistance on college campuses. Students at the university of Northern Arizona surrounded Kirk and drowned out his attempts at trolling the student body by chanting, “Fuck you, fascist!”

Protests against Kirk and various TPUSA trolls also took place in San Jose, California, San Luis Obispo, California, and in Utah, students shut down an attempted anti-LGBTQ+ speaker.

Antifascists across Ohio and the midwest also mobilized to confront and outnumber the Proud Boys, who held a rally at the Ohio capitol on January 6th to commemorate the attempted coup in DC. From a report on Idavox:

On the freezing cold morning of Saturday January 6, a few goons in plain clothes were on the ground around the Statehouse early, one was identified as a fascist spy in plainclothes, others were the expected cops or feds. A few more Proud Boys parked in the official ticketed pay-parking in the lot directly UNDER the Statehouse and appeared on the outskirts of the grounds around 9am. A group of 3 chatted with the rookies on the CPD “liasion” team who were also walking around.

By this time, around 30-40 antifascists in black block had already gathered at the McKinley statue on the west side along High Street (the usual high-profile spot for local demonstrations). A Food Not Bombs wagon had warming supplies, coffee, water, tea, and food. Over time, more people in black block gathered. Some black blockers stood to protect nearby public bathrooms, where Proud Boys are notorious for harassing non-binary people. By 10 am, there were no Proud Boys and only 5 cars full of open fascists at the truck stop. Eventually the truck-stop fascists drove downtown and were monitored by antifascists all along the way, parking and walking to the Statehouse. A few of fash chatted with the cops, but none of them gathered. Not by 10am, although the black block had grown to about 60. Not by 11am when the black block counted about 80-90 and a crew of bucket drummers began occupying the plaza giving us some sick hype beats to keep us moving in the cold. (It was fucking cold!) Although a few “patriot” looking goons tried to come by to try to taunt some of the black block kids eating sandwiches and trying to stay warm, they were wildly unsettled by the vitriol from angry youths and retreated to the other side of the plaza. By now there were about 90-100 black block people mostly hanging out along High Street.

Eventually, the cops had lined up on the other side of the Statehouse block to escort the group of Proud Boys who FINALLY showed up around 1pm en-masse with their insignia and gang swag. There were only about 80-90 of them all-told. They were escorted into the middle of the plaza by a cordon of bike and foot police in formation, separating them from about 120 black block antifascists. We had the numbers, but it was close. The cops easily outnumbered everyone (not unusual at the State Capitol, as noted), forming a line facing both ways with uniformed foot and bike officers.

There was no Proud Boy “ceremony” because they were essentially shouted down and drown out by the larger mass of counter-protesters. They stood and postured and gestured and cussed but stayed behind their precious police lines the entire time. No physical contact occurred, although one of Dawn Moody’s goons threw a salt ball that landed on the ground. No one was arrested, even though the Proud Boys attempted incitement. Curiously, no one can confirm Jeremy Deeter as attending the rally despite his plea for his people to show up!

To give credit: one crew of protesters, known in Columbus as the “Downtowners” who are people of color who actually LIVE downtown and are known to SHOW UP for every meaningful event since 2020, were right on the front-line, nose-to-nose with the cops and fascists, unintimidated and militant, refusing to back away or give ground. (Shout out to the Downtowners: Respect.)

The fascist goons lasted about 50 minutes in the cold and then decided to pull back to form a “prayer circle” to say something dumb about their führer Donald Trump and bless the convicted traitors who tried to help him steal a fair election. After blasphemously praying to Jesus, they grabbed their crotches and cussed some more from behind police lines and posed for a photo-op in front of the Statehouse steps. The police surrounded them for protection the entire time, of course. Ohio taxpayer’s money at work! It WOULD have been cheaper and justified all that piggy overtime if they just cleared the plaza, but THAT would have been a victory for us – we all would have just gone home to get warm and take naps.

In the end the Proud Boys sulked away, drown out by the jeers and taunts and singing of “Na-Na-Na-Na, Hey-Hey-Hey…” and followed out of town by activist observers to get documented, doxxed and exposed. It was a victory, everyone went home safe (We checked). There was a great deal of good will and solidarity formed across the various individual and affinity groups involved. Some from different leftist political backgrounds, but all united militantly against fascist gangs.

A final word of critique: follow up discussion among organizers and activists regarding the action was useful and identified a few areas of improvement. Notably, the black block line did not move to prevent the massed Proud Boy/police advance into the plaza in front of the steps. That space could have been occupied and/or we could have moved to surround them if we were faster than the police or taken the initiative to do so. Nevertheless, the Proud Boys in Ohio have learned that they can be outnumbered and are not feared. For all their bravado, they hypocritically need police protection to stage any of their hate shows. They will be thinking twice about how they stage their next one. We will be watching and waiting. As stated succinctly in the title of the recent book by Clay, Lady, Swartz, and Staudenmaier: We Go Where They Go.

Antifascists in Portland rallied to oppose a washed up far-Right Zionist comedian and in New York City, people mobilized against a Mom’s for Liberty event. Finally in Johnson City, Tennessee, antifascist protesters rallied against far-Right killer, Kyle Rittenhouse.

Featured Interview: Splits and Fractures Within the Proud Boys: What It Means for the Far-Right and Antifascists

The following interview was conducted over email with an antifascist monitoring the Proud Boys, both on the streets and online, about the impact and fallout of a street brawl between the Rose City Nationalists, a neo-Nazi group, and Proud Boys in Oregon City last summer. Coupled with the stress of ongoing court cases and heavy sentences stemming from the attempted pro-Trump coup on January 6th, we wanted to know how the Proud Boys were fracturing and changing in the current terrain – and what we can expect going into 2024.

This Week in Fascism: So what happened between Rose City Nationalists, a white supremacist/neo-Nazi group, and the Proud Boys in the Pacific Northwest last summer that caused so much infighting?

Rose City Nationalists is a Portland-based white nationalist/neo-Nazi group that is associated with the “Active Cub” movement, essentially a network of neo-Nazi fight clubs. RCN and the Portland Proud Boys both showed up to harass the same Pride event in June 2023 and ended up getting into a big street brawl that then ballooned into a nationwide online cat-fight between the two movements.

The broader Right responded as they are usually do, by misidentifying RCN as Patriot Front (another white nationalist organization), reactively labeling them as feds, and then fail-doxxing a Jewish college student from Southern California as one of the neo-Nazis. [Editor’s Note: Elon Musk is currently being sued over amplifying this – another example of him running cover for fash while attacking a Jewish person.]

It’s important to keep in mind that the leader of RCN is a castoff of the Portland Proud Boys who the group accused of doxxing and badmouthing the organization. So whatever ideological divides exist between PDXPB and RCN, it’s important to see this as being precipitated mostly by interpersonal beef. PDXPB said as much in their statement after the confrontation.

TWIF: How did the Proud Boys react to the fight as an organization and what does this say about them?

There was significant internal fallout within the Proud Boys, largely but not universally following some of the existing fault lines. Active Club groups made (likely quite exaggerated) claims about mass-defections of Proud Boys into their vetting process. At least one Proud Boy chapter president actually did defect to Blood Tribe, another overtly neo-Nazi group.

Unlike some of the more ideologically-focused far-Right groups out there, the Proud Boys operate as a big-tent org for people who fantasize about punching leftists and members of marginalized and oppressed communities. There’s a lot that’s been written about “Western Chauvinism” being code for white supremacy and while that’s not wrong, there is a level of detail that I think gets lost there. The vagueness of “The West” allows people with varying supremacist ideologies to co-mingle under the same banner. For some, “Western” means very literally “white.” For those primarily motivated by Christian Nationalism, “The West” equals Christendom. For others, it means American natalism, or male supremacy. “Western Chauvinism” is, in essence, nationalism looking for a nation.

While it’s all oriented at maintaining existing systems of dominance, the structure covers up quite a bit of ideological incoherence. Beyond the surface level stuff of wanting to fight their political opposition, there’s little agreement about what they actually want or how they want to get there. When things are going well, it’s easy to look past that as a group, but when conflict begins, there’s quite a few fractures that exist beneath the surface.

TWIF: Splits among the Proud Boys are not new, but it seems that many antifascists are unaware of the extent that the group has fractured into various organizations, networks, and cults of personality. Can you map them out for us? Are they regional? Ideological? Organizational?

Much of the current situation amongst the Proud Boys comes out of the events of 2020. Trump’s “Stand Back and Stand By” comment in the presidential debates lead to a huge influx of new members, largely drawn from a different ideological and demographic stock, different from the existing Proud Boy makeup. And then January 6th hit, and the backlash from that caused a huge strain on the organization.

There were already revelations floating around about pedophilia charges and previous convictions that had been brought against a few members of Proud Boy leadership at the time. Then in late January 2021, a story came out that Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio had been a “prolific” informant prior to joining the organization, amongst paranoia about the looming federal crackdown on those who had participated in the events of January 6th. Several chapters quickly declared their “autonomy” from the national leadership and structure. Tarrio’s own chapter eventually disavowed him, though he simply formed a new chapter in its place. Ryan Ramsey, president of the Jacksonville chapter, proposed “The Standard”: that legitimacy be conferred by upholding a pledge against pedophilia and non-cooperation with the feds, rather than by adherence to the National structure. He also advocated against more overt displays of Nazism or other racism, mostly out of fear of hate crime enhancements.

The result has been a split into two broad factions, “National” and “Standard.” National is the larger of the two, and more centralized (though much of the centralization in both factions has been killed off). They have tended to be less active in the streets, though that is not universal. They also tend to be more overt about white supremacy and inclusion of Nazi ideology and imagery in their movement. The “Standard” or “Rogue” chapters are viewed as illegitimate by the Nationals – and seen merely as castoffs and impostors dressing as Proud Boys.

TWIF: Has repression of the Proud Boys leadership post-J6 made any impact on the organization at all? Both in terms of strategy, size of those involved in the group, and its ability to engage and carry out action?

Many of the former upper leaders of the Proud Boys are serving lengthy prison sentences for their J6 actions, and the nationwide repercussions have driven changes throughout the organization. Many of the internal national chats have been dissolved and there remain legitimate questions about which chapters or members are to be seen as legitimate as a result. This is the source of endless bickering in Proud Boy spaces, even escalating into doxxing and physical altercations at times. The legal repercussions have also driven many chapters away from public activity. It’s important to note however, that this doesn’t necessarily mean that those chapters have decreased in size, and antifascists should be on the lookout for these chapters that have been operating covertly to begin engaging in above-ground operations in the upcoming election season.

TWIF: What do these splits mean for what happens in the streets over the coming year? What should antifascists be keeping in mind?

While it can seem at first like drama that’s fit for a bit of entertainment but not much else, I think following these trends is important for antifascists. Knowing the alignments of local groups and chapters and their relationships with neighboring groups can tell you a lot about what to expect in terms of numbers and composition at events. Knowing which groups hate each other can be very useful for planning responses. When we get intel about an event and know which groups are involved, we can also make predictions about which groups won’t be involved. That in turn can help antifascists choose effective strategies for countering them, predict what kind of tactics those groups might use based on prior experience with them, etc.

When you have that kind of more granular information, it makes it much easier to create plans with specific goals and outcomes in terms of disruption, whether that might be deterrence, intel gathering, etc. It puts you in a much better place than simply trying to accumulate as many people as possible for a counter-presence because you don’t know what to expect.

TWIF: Despite all these splits, it seems just as possible that these groups may come together again under a big enough tent, either in support of Trump or to attack ‘the Left.’ How do you see these formations maneuvering during the upcoming election cycle.

Whether it’s the Left or the Right, there’s a constant tension between centralization, which allows easier routes to amassing social power, and decentralization, which provides resistance to both infiltration/surveillance and co-optation via hierarchy. We’ve seen a pattern on the Right where things swing towards centralization towards election years, when people perceive social power and mass mobilization as mattering the most, and decentralization in between, when the resulting repression makes anonymity and small group actions far more attractive. Thus we’ve seen the Proud Boys, a centralized organization wane in influence since 2020, while Active Clubs, which are much more decentralized, have gained prominence. Even within the Proud Boys, the more decentralized “Standard”/”autonomous” – aligned groups seem to have been most active in the streets.

I’d suspect in 2024 we’ll see the Proud Boys, with their more optics-friendly approach and ability for larger mobilizations, gaining traction, including some of the “National” – aligned groups that have been more dormant. I’ve seen a lot of talk about, “Just wait for rally season,” in Proud Boy chats. There is talk of trying to reconcile these differences, but to date I haven’t seen it come to much fruition.

TWIF: Where should antifascists be looking to keep an eye on these groups?

Telegram is one of the main spaces where both Proud Boys and the more overt neo-Nazi groups are organizing. Gab is another place to keep an eye on, though its role tends to be more for propagandizing and outreach than as an organizing space. Facebook is also a place to look at. This is a space where many of the hard-Right groups make attempts at entryism, forming explicit or implicit coalitions with above-ground right-wing groups like Moms for Liberty, especially surrounding issues with wider purchase, such as anti-vax and anti-queer movements.

Solidarity and Support

• In late December of 2023, our friend and comrade Klee Benally, Indigenous anarchist and long-time land defender passed on. Klee leaves behind a huge body of work, bringing a fierce anti-colonial perspective to antifascist and anarchist thought and organizing. We encourage everyone to check out Indigenous Action, here.

• Longtime antifascist organizer Daryle Lamond Jenkins is in need of solidarity and support. Share and donate to Daryle’s campaign here.
• Antifascist and community defender Christ “Big Tex” G is facing legal threats from fascist groups. Support them here.
• Prisoners such as Alex Stokes and Peppy and Krystal continue to need letters and financial support. Organize a benefit or letter-writing night!
• Check out our In Contempt column for more info and ways to support prisoners!

cover photo: @CentralOhioSRA