Photo: JOHN RUDOFF/AFP/Getty Images
By: Maribel Hastings and David Torres Posted 06 Sep 2023, 20:28 pm EDT
It is to be anticipated that in the twisted times in which we have had to live, the 22-year sentence of the former leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, for seditious conspiracy after the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, causes the extremist group to add followers and can spread its tentacles throughout the country.
It is, in fact, a natural reaction among those who feel “offended” because an unsympathetic provocateur has been given what he deserves based on the law; and it does not matter that he is of Hispanic origin, like many of this community who identify with his arrogance and misdeeds, but what is most important is that Tarrio represents the living reflection of a segment of the population that deifies extremism and violence above of all things.
It’s somewhat similar to what happens with Donald J. Trump, who the more criminal charges he faces, 91 so far, stemming from four separate cases, the more support he receives from his supporters and the more money he adds to his coffers in his attempt to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2024.
The most recent CNN poll, for example, shows a 52% preference for the former president, compared to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who only received 18% support. In other words, there is now a 34% difference between the two most anti-immigrant presidential candidates in recent US history.
In fact, the Proud Boys emerge right in 2016 in the midst of Trump’s rise not only to the Republican nomination, but also to the presidency. Such has been the group’s defense of the former president that the prosecutor in the case against the organization’s leaders has described it as “Trump’s army.”
Agencia EFE via El Nuevo Herald wrote that “the latest data available from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled), which collects real-time information on incidents of political violence, indicates that the activity of the Proud Boys in July fell by a 75% compared to June of this year”. This amid the sentences of other leaders of the group for their role in the assault on January 6, 2021.
However, he adds that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) “warns that the group is not in the process of disappearing, but rather of reconversion.” SPLC has noted that the neo-fascist group is “diversifying” and opening more branches than ever across the country.
In other words, going over the bad side of history seems to be the destiny of those who have chosen to support who reflects the worst that one of the most powerful nations in the world has produced, and whose arrogance, narcissism, extremism, and lack of respect The laws have become the new values of their group of idolaters.
Let us not forget that the January 6 coup attempt was aimed at preventing the certification of Joe Biden as the rightfully elected President of the United States, because Trump and his enablers spread the lie that the election had been “stolen” from him. Trump urged the mob, including the Proud Boys, to storm the Capitol, promising them pardons if he became president again in 2024.
And here we are on the threshold of another choice and it seems that nothing has been learned. Because the GOP base favors a person who in any league would be labeled a felon.
That is, an individual with 91 criminal charges is the favorite in the polls, and by far. He controls his party’s message in various areas, including immigration, to the extent that extreme right-wing Republican congressmen threaten to shut down the government if, to the extent that it finances operations, their immigration demands are not met, including the erection of the ridiculous wall in the border and that the project that seeks an impeachment trial against President Biden be voted on.
Because in the end, the line between violent extremists like the Proud Boys and the rest of the Republican Party no longer blurs. In fact, those Republicans were the very ones who were slow to condemn the January 6 assault; They are the ones who continue to propagate the lie of the “theft” of the election, and who, despite all the compelling evidence of Trump’s role, maintain that he is “politically persecuted.”
They are wrong. The privileges enjoyed by an anti-immigrant like Donald Trump, who receives more than millions of dollars in aid with each charge he is accused of, in no way compares to the difficult conditions faced by those who have truly been politically persecuted by regimes that apply terror. as a rule and that forces many to leave their countries, with no other option than to seek refuge in other latitudes, including the United States, where paradoxically the businessman wants to be president again.