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Oct 29, 20

This Week in Fascism #80: Militias Call for Voter Intimidation and Violence; Unions for General Strike

Welcome fellow antifascists!

We have a mammoth sized column for you today! First up, we look at far-Right militias threatening to harass voters on election day, Proud Boys acting as security at a Trump rally in Florida, labor unions calling for a general strike, more arrests of neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists, and militia members plotting violence in the lead up to the election, Unicorn Riot dumping massive cache of info on the Boogaloo Boys, doxxes, calls to action, and much more!

With no time to waste – let’s dive in!

Far-Right Militia Groups Claim They Will Police Polling Stations with Arms; Potentially Use Violence

Militias are gearing up to show up at polling stations on election day – and they are bringing their guns with them. Members of both the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, two of the largest formations of far-Right militias in the US, have stated that they will be involved in armed policing of polling stations of election day, citing non-existent threats of “ANTIFA” and Black Lives Matter in an effort to justify voter intimidation.

According to Raw Story:

Corey Lequieu, a member of the Three Percenters militia network, believes the armed demonstrations will be justified to defend against actions he expects Nov. 3 from antifascist activists and Black Lives Matter supporters, reported California Public Radio.

“I got a feeling that BLM and antifa are going to be out here doing voter intimidation,” said Lequieu, who was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for taking part in the standoff against federal agents in 2016 alongside anti-government activist Ammon Bundy.

Lequieu is legally prohibited from carrying a gun due to his Malheur conviction, but he wears tactical gear to counterprotest against racial justice demonstrations alongside often heavily armed comrades.

Not to be outdone, one-eye wonder weasel Steward Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers, went on InfoWars to claim that his group will be out at polling stations as well. As Media Matters wrote:

Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes said members of his militia will be at polling locations on Election Day to “protect” Trump voters during an appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ program. After making that claim, Rhodes made a number of unhinged statements, including saying Oath Keepers would follow directives from President Donald Trump to take members of the “deep state” into custody and “do what we have to do,” that Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act before the election, that Oath Keepers will “be in range” of Washington D.C., to stop a “Benghazi-style” attack on the White House on election night, and that a war will have to be fought against Democrats on the West Coast who are “bought” by the Chinese government. Rhodes also hyped the possibility of a second civil war where his “battle-hardened” supporters kill the “street soldiers” and “command and control” of “the radical left.”

During an October 27 appearance on The Alex Jones Show, Rhodes said members of his militia are going to “stand up and protect people on Election Day” at the polls because opponents of Trump will be supposedly “coercing and threatening” his supporters as part of an effort by Democrats to steal the election.

Unicorn Riot Releases Boogaloo Boy Chat Logs; Expose Violent Far-Right Ideology Where Neo-Nazis Are Welcome; Heavy Crossover With Militia and Patriot Groups

Autonomous media-collective Unicorn Riot has released a new treasure trove of internal chats from inside the Boogaloo movement; a far-Right merger of the Alt-Right and Patriot formations that developed out of 4chan and is known for glorifying armed violence and repackaged conspiracy theories and white racial anxiety of State crackdown on firearms. The movement has grown in the post-Trump terrain, as far-Right Boogaloo Boys have participated in the massive pro-gun rights rally in Virginia this January and the Re-Open demonstrations in the Spring. Conspiracy theories surrounding the pandemic and new gun control laws have only further accelerated this tendency.

According to Unicorn Riot:

The ‘boogaloo’ is not a single coherent group but represents a decentralized informal online movement, yet devoted adherents consistently reproduce hierarchical right-wing social values despite their superficial opposition to government authority.

Throughout the earlier months of 2020, Unicorn Riot was actively monitoring ‘boogaloo bois’ via several Discord chat servers – Patriotwave, Boojahadeens of Liberty, and others – from which over 240,000 messages have now become available at our public DiscordLeaks database. Findings and themes documented below are intended to be helpful in decoding ongoing ‘boogaloo’ phenomena. Unicorn Riot has reported on Discord-based far-right activity since 2017.

‘Patriotwave’ was described by one of its adherents as the “absolute bleeding edge of the public face” of the boogaloo movement. As of May 2020, Patriotwave was an official entity with its own P.O. Box in in Hampton, VA, according to its founder and leader, Jordan Lee Shepherd aka ‘Squid.’

Squid likes to present himself as a constitutionalist or libertarian, but these misapplied labels mask a darker violent animus. In a June 2019 message, he wrote that he believes a “new United States can be formed under the Constitution” but only after “tyrants, criminals, and the morrally depraved” are “cleaned up“.

He is a self-described “fan” of the Proud Boys, and praised the American Identity Movement (a rebrand of the neo-nazi group Identity Evropa). He also shared a meme featuring the ‘Black sun‘ or Sonnenrad, a European runic symbol commonly substituted for swastikas by contemporary neo-nazis.

The boogaloo contains several strains, which Unicorn Riot has been monitoring via the chat app Discord throughout 2020. The group Patriotwave represents one of the more dominant recurring strains of Boogaloo phenomena.

As Unicorn Riot went on to write, there is a large amount of cross-over between far-Right militia groups like the Three Percenters and organizations like the Proud Boys. Moreover, the groups have similar enemies:

The main violent animus possessed by Jordan/Squid and his Patriotwave followers seems to be against antifascists and the left, who they clearly want to “purge” from society via mass murder. Particular interest is expressed in killing “communists,” with Squid clarifying that he also sees labor unions as “commie shit.”

Some Patriotwave members expressed interest in “hunting” Jewish worshipers at synagogues. Others shared memes celebrating the Christchurch mosque shooter and advocated killing Muslims. Another shared a post advocating for the “physical removal” of gay people from society. Many of the men in the chat also showed a disturbing inclination towards violence against women.

Many of the posts archived by Unicorn Riot promote violence and acts of terror and also show a desire by many Boogaloo Boys to pursue careers and training in law enforcement and the military; while some are already enlisted. As Unicorn Riot wrote:

The tickle of laughter accompanying the aesthetic seems intended to distract, to disarm, and ultimately, to clear the way for more advances along the lines of violent right-wing libertarian ideology. To ignore it is dangerous, especially given the strong prevalence of unapologetic nazis and fascists in their ranks.

Arrest of Boogaloo Boy Ivan Hunter Shows Networks within the Movement

On Friday, October 23rd, a federal court charged Boogaloo Boy Ivan Hunter with one count of traveling across state lines to incite a riot. Hunter, self-professed leader of the Boogaloo Boys in South Texas, is alleged to have shot his AK-47 rifle into the Minneapolis Third Precinct, during the uprising in which the building was set on fire.

Andy Mannix of the Minnesota Star Tribune reports:

Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old from Boerne, Texas, is charged with one count of interstate travel to incite a riot for his alleged role in ramping up violence during the protests in Minneapolis on May 27 and 28. According to charges, Hunter, wearing a skull mask and tactical gear, shot 13 rounds at the south Minneapolis police headquarters while people were inside. He also looted and helped set the building ablaze, according to the complaint, which was filed Monday under seal.”

It’s worth repeating that he and his fellow Boogaloo Boys fired into the precinct while there were protesters inside. They were firing at protesters. Mannix also states that according to federal court documents, “Hunter and other members of the Boogaloo Bois discussed in private Facebook messages their plans to travel to Minneapolis and rally at the Cub Foods across from the third precinct.”

According to the affadavit, Hunter was organizing via private Facebook messages with Steven Carrillo, Boogaloo Boy and sergeant with the U.S. Air Force based at Travis Air Force Base who murdered Federal Protective Services Ofc. David Patrick Underwood in Oakland in late May, and then Santa Cruz Sheriff Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller a week later. In addition to Hunter and Carrillo, two other members of the Boogaloo group, Michael Robert Soloman and Benjamin Ryan Teeter, were arrested and charged at the beginning of September for plotting to overthrow the government by providing material aid to foreign extremist organization Hamas.

We have covered the Boogaloo movement extensively as it has gained traction in digital spaces like Facebook and Telegram, and then into real life spaces as it’s members have made attempts to co-opt the George Floyd uprising and the Black Lives Matter movement. “Boogaloo Boys are often armed and they wear Hawaiian shirts to the protests, a meme referencing the “boogaloo,” or armed struggle against the government that culminates in a race war. (When social media companies started to ban accounts featuring the word “Boogaloo,” adherents began using homonyms, including “big igloo” and “big luau,” which bred the Hawaiian shirt meme).

The Boogaloo Boys are closely connected to far-Right militia groups and the Patriot movement, and grow out of online white supremacist spaces such as 4chan. In many ways, the represent a merger of the Patriot movement’s conspiratorial politics and the Alt-Right’s embrace of internet memes and imagery. Some claim to support Black Lives Matter, but only because they want to use it as an opportunity to push their own agenda or literally hijack the movement.

Emily Gorcenski, a data scientist and antifascist activist, weighed in on this exact conundrum via Twitter thread, “We have always known that reactionary far-right accelerationist outsiders would be using these moments to cause trouble. However, evidence has shown over and over and over that the majority of people who have been arrested and charged are locals with non-extremist politics.”

Emily also tweets, “The real reveal in the Boog story is not ‘omg white supremacists did minneapolis,’ it’s ‘omg white supremacists were networking nationally to do murders in many cities.'” While anarchists and leftists have known what the Boogaloo movement is about, it’s clear that this disorganized network of racist militants are more connected and organized than perhaps mainstream media and certain CVE experts have give them credit for.

American Labor Union’s Pass Resolutions Calling for General Strike to Fight Possible Trump Coup

Earlier this week, both the Western Mass Area Labor Federation AFL-CIO and the 100,000-member MLK Labor Council, passed resolutions calling on the U.S Labor movement to prepare for “a general strike of all working people” in the event that President Trump refuses to leave office. The resolution passed by Western Mass Area Labor Federation AFL-CIO specifically identifies that “the strengthening of democratic institutions is vital for confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate emergency, white supremacy, the drastic inequality of wealth and power, and other crises facing our country and the world,” as well as calls into account the fact that neither President Trump nor Vice President Mike Pence have openly stated that they will concede power if voted out. The resolution also states “whereas workers in Western Massachusetts and throughout the United States must be steadfast in defense of our democracy in the face of President Trump’s neo-fascist tactics, included his repeated refusal to denounce white supremacist paramilitary organizations that have stated desire to overthrow American democracy.”

The Berkshire Eagle interviewed Lydia Wood, a field organizer for the federation who says, “We consider that the most powerful tool the movement has… It’s not about conservatives or liberals, it’s more about defending our democratic process.”

According to an article written by TruthOut, “MLK Labor will call on to City and County governments to pledge to protect the protesters defending democracy and commit to not using police action or curfews to curtail these activities and to use all available resources to stand up against any effort by the Trump administration to steal the election… MLK Labor, in collaboration with other labor and progressive forces, will take whatever nonviolent actions are necessary up to and including a general strike to protect our democracy, the Constitution, the law and our nation’s democratic traditions.”

Last week, the Rochester AFL-CIO Labor Council became to first AFL union body in the US to call for a general strike in the event that Trump either tampers with the election or refuses to leave office. The resolution, passed by the 70,000 member Rochester Labor Council states, “Therefore, now be it resolved that the Rochester Labor Council, AFL-CIO, stands firmly in opposition to any effort to subvert, distort, misrepresent or disregard the final outcome of the 2020 Presidential elections.”

Mike Elk of the Payday Report indicates, “The National AFL-CIO did not respond to requests for comments if they plan to strike if Trump doesn’t respect election results. However, in Rochester, workers say they are beginning to prepare a strike that would help push Trump from power. A General Strike could hurt the bottom line of many large corporations, putting corporate pressure on Trump to leave office.”

 

Also stated by TruthOut, “The AFL-CIO Constitution suggests the move is well within the executive committee’s purview and could even be argued as necessary to fulfill its Article II, Section 12 obligations, which instructs the federation:

“To protect the labor movement from any and all corrupt influences and from the undermining efforts of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, terrorism and all other forces that suppress individual liberties and freedom of association and oppose the basic principles of our democracy and of free and democratic unionism.”

As anarchists, we talk about a general strike pretty regularly. For this groundswell of labor unions to pass resolutions one after another, is indicative of the labor movement’s concern about the rising threat of a Trump power grab. As anarchists and antifascists, we should work within this moment to generalize these calls for a general strike into something beyond just a support for neoliberal capitalist democracy, especially in the context of racialized policing and the Black Lives Matter movement.

It will be interesting to see how police forces who are members of the AFL-CIO respond to calls for a general strike, given how Trump has emboldened harsher policing in an effort to suppress the nationwide uprising against police violence. Labor activist, anarchist and freelance journalist Kim Kelly reports in an article published by The New Republic:

The AFL-CIO represents 55 member unions, a sprawling, fractious coalition of teachers, municipal employees, steelworkers, and journalists—as well as the 100,000 law enforcement officers who belong to the International Union of Police Associations. This leading cop union has come under fire in recent months for its role in shielding officers from accountability in racially charged brutality cases; since June, the labor movement’s newly empowered left-wing has been calling on Trumka to kick IUPA [International Union of Police Associations] out of the federation. Trumka has gone out of his way to offer public support to protesters—even after some torched his headquarters—but he also seems hell-bent on sidestepping the calls to disaffiliate from IUPA.

Our current political climate almost guarantees that things will get more precarious and divided inside the labor movement as calls for a general strike continue to take shape. It’s unclear at this time which side of the fight IUPA members will land on but given what we know about law enforcement and the racism embedded in policing, it’s easy to assume Trump will continue to have the support of his cops.

Arrests of Far-Right Militias, Neo-Nazis, and Conspiracy Theorists Plotting Violence Continue

As the election gets closer, arrests of far-Right, neo-Nazi, and conspiracy theorist groups plotting acts of murder and violence continue:

  • 19-year-old Alexander Hillel Treisman was arrested several miles away from the home of Joe Biden with numerous guns, over 500,000 in cash, child pornography, drawings of swastikas and scribbled plans about killing ex-Vice President, Joe Biden.
  • Richard Holzer, 28, neo-Nazi plead guilty to charges in Colorado for plotting to carry out an attack on a synagogue.
  • In Ohio:

Local newspapers have exposed a plot led by Republican activist Renea Turner to build a “posse” to kidnap and murder the state’s governor, Mike DeWine. Though DeWine is a Republican and a Trump supporter, he was evidently targeted for implementing mild restrictions to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed over 5,100 Ohioans.

Turner confirmed in a Friday interview with Cleveland.com that she was trying to recruit people to place the governor under “house arrest.” The plan was revealed when an individual she attempted to recruit filed a police report last week. State police then visited Turner but did not make an arrest. As of this writing, not a single national news publication had reported the Ohio developments.

Proud Boys Provide Security at GOP Event

According to CL Tampa, the connections between the GOP and the Proud Boys have only become more visible since Trump urged them to ‘Stand back and stand by,” with the group now openly doing security at Trump events:

Just days following the debate, Proud Boys were present at Donald Trump Jr.’s Tampa rally. And, last weekend, multiple members of the group provided event security for a “Pro America” event in Milton, Florida, that featured Congressman Matt Gaetz, reports WEAR-TV. It’s important to note that Gaetz has a long history of cozying up with far-right figures like the Proud Boys (including white supremacist Holocaust deniers).

The congressman expressed this during his weekly podcast, where he claimed (in the most Trumpian way possible) that he didn’t know anything about the group. The congressman also stated that the Proud Boys can’t possibly be violent racists because they were helping secure an event that featured “Black voices for Trump.”

“As I was leaving the event, someone came up to me and said did you notice who was helping with security,” Gaetz shared on the podcast. “I said no and she said, the Proud Boys. I thought, my goodness, the Proud Boys providing security and safety for the Black voices for Trump attending a pro-America rally in the Deep South… doesn’t seem to match their characterization.” Gaetz later confirmed to WEAR-TV that the Proud Boys did in fact provide security for the event.

Doxxes

Michael Patrick Hagerty II, Patriot Front and Revolt Through Tradition Member of Atlanta, GA

Atlanta Antifascists have outed Michael Hagerty as a member of both Patriot Front and Revolt Through Tradition. He is a self-proclaimed National Socialist who has placed propaganda for these white supremacist organizations around the Atlanta area. He is a friend of Ryan Saxer, the Revolt Through Tradition member exposed last week by Corvallis Antifa, and Georgia’s “John GA” of Patriot Front, who put up Nazi propaganda ata synagogue in Columbus earlier this year. Hagerty’s uncle is a Republican senate candidate from Tennessee. From the full dox:

Twenty-year-old Michael Patrick Hagerty, II is a member of two racist organizations, Patriot Front and Revolt Through Tradition. This year, he placed stickers for those organizations throughout Atlanta. Hagerty even wears clothes designating himself as a “National Socialist” – in other words, a neo-Nazi. His uncle, Bill Hagerty, is a Trump loyalist campaigning as the Republican candidate in Tennessee’s US Senate race, which he will likely win. Bill Hagerty vilifies Black Lives Matter and anti-fascists. Meanwhile, his nephew works with white supremacists to build a climate of intimidation against people of color, Jewish people, Muslims, leftists and LGBTQ communities.

More information can be found here.

Monica Lynn Noble and Ashley Latay Macauley, COPS NW Members from Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA

Rose City Antifa has identified Monica Lynn Noble (Portland, OR) and Ashley Latay Macauley (of Vancouver, WA) as two of the COPS NW members who vandalized a children’s Black Lives Matter themed art display during last week’s racist, pro-ICE demonstration. This demo was hosted by far-right Nazi collaborator Audra Price, covered in last week’s column.

The thread below shows Ashley Latay Macauley cutting down the posters with a what appears to be a pocketknife and arguing with the woman filming, who claims to be the parent of a student at the school. Armed right wing protesters can be seen in the background of photographs of the incident.

Monica Lynn Noble was also captured on video tearing down and stealing the schoolchildren’s anti-racist drawings while shouting profanity at the concerned and frightened parent who confronted her.

Jacob Oliver, White Supremacist of Dighton, MA

AntiFash Gordon has identified 18-year-old Jacob Oliver of Dighton, MA as the man who drove through a crowd of protesters in Providence, RI on Friday night as cops watched and did nothing. Comments from Oliver’s Facebook account show him admitting to a separate incident of violent intimidation against protesters. In these Facebook comments he also claims that the license plate number on his truck can’t be traced back to him, however his public Instagram page features several photos of the vehicle, with the same license plate and identifying pro-cop bumber stickers in full view. Not only does Oliver have a history of intimidating protesters with his truck, but he was also the subject of a viral incident where he called a Black woman the n-word while wearing a confederate flag hoodie.

Oliver owns Simple Life Landscaping. He is a hateful, violent racist, and people in the Dighton area should be aware that he is a threat.

Glen Kincaid, Back the Blue Rallygoer of Washougal, WA

Camas Defense Alliance has outed Glen Kincaid as one of the protesters at Friday evening’s “Rally for the Blue,” an event that was met with a Black Lives Matter themed counter-protest. He is the owner of Glen Kincaid Construction. A vocal Trump supporter, he has an extensive history of posting far-Right content on social media, mentioning is desire to join the Proud Boys and start a right-wing milita to violently oppose BLM and Antifa. In June, he put out a call to arms by sharing a post by “Antifa America,” a fake page created by neo-Nazis in the American Identity Movement (formerly Identity Europa) to incite violence against protesters. Comments below the post suggest that he went into town armed, looking for antifascists. Fortunately, he went home because there were no protests, but his willingness to carry out acts of violence is of great concern.

Kincaid is connected to the Camas Republican party and is running for Charter Review Commissioner in Council District 4 in the upcoming election. Share Camas Defense Alliance’s thread with folks in the area to ensure that he does not gain any more power in his community.

Michael Walden, Proud Boy of Traverse City, MI

Researchers at Vigilant AFA have exposed Traverse City Proud Boy Michael Walden as one of two speakers who used their public comment slots to read promotional materials for the “Western Chauvinist” hate group at a local County Commissioners meeting in March of 2020. In August, Walden joined other Michigan Proud Boys as part of the security team for John James, a Republican senate candidate with ties to the militia movement, recently documented by Metro Times.

Information on Walden’s businesses is scarce, but according to Vigilant AFA, he owns M&M Chauffeur and MW Crafting. Traverse Country residents should be aware that these businesses are run by a hate group.

26 Members of The Base Exposed by DeBasedDoxx

A blog called DeBasedDoxx has emerged revealing identifying information for 26 members of neo-Nazi terrorist organization, The Base. Upcoming articles will appear on the hashtag #DeBasedDoxx on Twitter. From the blog’s Contact page:

A network of anti-fascist activists from coast to coast have obtained the chat logs of a neo-Nazi organization calling itself “The Base.” Anti-fascists infiltrated the Base in order to investigate and identify its members and disseminate this information to the public.

In an ongoing series of articles, the coordinating anti-fascist network will publish revealing information about this group and profile its members. You can follow all of these articles by following the hashtag #DeBasedDoxx.

Call to Action

Deplatform Florida Nazi Donald Hansard

Don Hansard, owner of American Drain Cleaning LLC, is the leader of the Florida chapter of Vinlander’s Social Club. He has been an organizing with other white supremacists for years and has a notably violent history, having served four and half years in prison for attacking a Cuban family while handing out racist propaganda. Corvallis Antifa is asking for help warning the community about Don. Please leave reviews of Hansard’s business on sites such as Yellow Pages and Home Advisor so folks in the area are aware that American Drain Cleaning LLC is run by a violent neo-Nazi.

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Support Our Prisoners

  • Support those arrested during the ongoing rebellion! Check out list of bail funds here.
  • Support Gage Halupowski! Currently serving a six year sentence. There is currently an outbreak at his prison, so please step up and support! More info here.
  • Support Bay Area anti-racist Adroa Anderson, who is facing charges following a rally against the Proud Boys in San Francisco. Donate to the Black and Brown Legal Defense and Community Give Back on cashapp: $F12UNITY
  • Support Eric King! Anarchist and antifascist prisoner who has been targeted by the State and neo-Nazi inmates for being ‘ANTIFA.’ More info here. Donate here.

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A weekly roundup of the latest and greatest happenings in the anti-fascist world. Each column features a roundup of news, actions, doxxes and current calls to action.

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