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The right-wing riot on the United States Capitol on Wednesday – and President Donald Trump’s recognition, after weeks of contesting the November presidential election results, that a transfer of power would occur – was seen by some analysts like the end of Trump’s right. time.
The group of rioters who violated the building in support of Trump and his false claim that the presidential contest was stolen by electoral fraud have been widely condemned.
But one expert said far-right groups and white nationalists in the United States see the Capitol takeover as a new beginning to celebrate.
“White nationalists and other far-right groups are celebrating what happened on Capitol Hill,” said Cassie Miller, senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks the far right, in an email.
“They are already using images of insurgents in the rooms as propaganda and insist that we are watching the start of a revolution,” Miller said.
Road to the Capitol
The far right previously saw Trump’s election in 2016 as the start of a revolution.
Trump claimed victory to the cheers of a resurgent white nationalist movement, renamed “alt-right,” led in part by Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute.
Spencer frequently publicly advocated for white nationalism in 2017. He was sometimes joined by white nationalist Tim Gionet, known as “Baked Alaska” online, who was present at the Capitol Riot.
Spencer and other groups, including the Proud Boys, were instrumental in organizing the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Activist Tim Gionet, who goes by the online name of “ Baked Alaska, ” chats with White Nationalist Leader Richard Spencer, as self-proclaimed white nationalists and “ Alt-Right ” supporters attend a rally in Washington, DC on June 25, 2017 [File: Jim Bourg/Reuters]
Trump said there were good people on “both sides” of the protest, which saw anti-racist Heather Heyer killed by far-right James Alex Fields Jr, who drove his car through a crowd of cons -demonstrators.
The deadly events sparked a backlash, leading to canceled speech events for Spencer and other far-right figures, as well as an increasingly active “Antifa” counter-protest movement.
In 2018, the Proud Boys, who describe themselves as “Western chauvinists” who support Western culture but are seen as a hate group by the SPLC, were organizing protests that often turned violent across the country.
Arrests
The Proud Boys have vowed to be at the pro-Trump rally on Jan.6 in the US capital “in record numbers,” according to social media posts by group leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio.
Tarrio was arrested ahead of the pro-Trump rally by local police and charged with misdemeanor for burning a Black Lives Matter banner during a pro-Trump protest in December.
He was also charged with two counts of possession of a high capacity ammunition supply device and ordered to leave town before the demonstration.
Meanwhile, other far-right figures have been arrested in connection with the US Capitol Riot, including “Proud Boys Hawaii” founder Nick Ochs, who was arrested for raping the Capitol after his death. back to Hawaii, Forbes reported.
RUPTURE: Clashes reported inside US Capitol building pic.twitter.com/2twyZAD6wJ
– BNO News (@BNONews) January 6, 2021
QAnon
One of the most striking images of the Capitol Riot is that of Jake Angeli, the shirtless, horned “Q Shaman”.
Angeli has been seen since 2019 in the Arizona Capitol Building, where he espouses ideas scattered throughout the QAnon Belief Set, a conspiracy theory that claims Trump was selected to defeat a liberal “deep state cabal” Who collect the blood of children.
On Saturday, the District of Columbia’s United States Attorney’s Office said Angeli, also known as Jacob Anthony Chansley, was arrested and charged with knowingly entering or staying in a restricted building or land without legal permission.
He was also charged with violent entry and disorderly conduct on the Capitol grounds.
The QAnon conspiracy theory gained popularity after it emerged on the fringes of the internet in 2017. People wearing QAnon clothing and carrying signs showing their support for the conspiracy were first seen during the events of the Trump campaign in 2018.
Supporters of US President Donald Trump stand at the door of the Senate Chamber after breaching the security of the US Capitol in Washington, DC [File: Jim Lo Scalzo/EFE]
QAnon has infiltrated the American political stream.
Several congressional candidates have expressed support for the conspiracy in the 2020 election cycle, including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who won her contest in Georgia with 74 percent of the vote.
Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano appeared on a QAnon talk show where he “uttered violent rhetoric” ahead of the pro-Trump protest that led to the riot, according to the media monitoring group Media Matters.
Mastriano was also present at the pro-Trump protest before people entered the Capitol. He was called upon to resign, but Republicans in Pennsylvania said there was “no reason” for him to resign.
No more protests, more violence
Alex Kaplan, senior researcher at Media Matters, told Al Jazeera that while QAnon’s future is uncertain, its impact goes beyond the internet. “We know that QAnon is not just an online conspiracy theory and its offline harms have already been significant,” Kaplan said.
There is no way to instantly demobilize this movement, and therefore we can expect more mass protests and violence.
The level of integration between QAnon and far-right groups like the Proud Boys remains uncertain.
But the far-right movement supporting Trump has been emboldened by recent events, Miller told the SPLC, and activists are using Trump’s electoral defeat to claim that “violently dismantling democracy” is the only way to achieve their goals. Goals.
“Violent insurgency fantasies are rife in the far right, and now they are permeating the Trump base,” Miller said. “There is no way to instantly demobilize this movement, so we can probably expect more mass protests and violence.”
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