On the cover, two words give a clue to the reputation of the team that produced it: “MAGA” and “WARNING”. That and the date: January 5, 2021, the day before the attack on the US Capitol. What’s not said on the cover, and barely mentioned in the 23 pages, is that this is the work of one of the most violent political gangs in America, the far-right street fighters who Donald Trump has told to “stand back and stand by »: the Proud Boys. The document, first published by the Guardian, gives a very rare insight into the meticulous planning involved in events organized by the far-right club. The Proud Boys have been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and are alleged to have acted as key organizers of the violent attack on the Capitol. In the wake of January 6, which has been linked to the deaths of nine people, the march in New York containing the document was canceled and the strategy so carefully planned was never implemented. But the document remains highly revealing. It shows the lengths to which the Proud Boys go to prepare for potentially violent encounters and then cover their tracks — something prosecutors have emphasized, but that has never been seen in the group’s words. It exposes the militaristic structure and language adopted by the Proud Boys and their ambition to become the front line of vigilantism in a Trump-led America. It also provides clues as to how the group continues to spread its tentacles across the US, despite the fact that many of its top leaders, including the country’s president, Enrique Tarrio, are behind bars awaiting trial by the charge of conspiracy riot. The purpose of the document is to provide a “strategic security plan” and call to action, inviting members of the Proud Boys to a pro-Trump Maga march planned for New York on January 10, 2021. That was four days after the Congress was to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election – the occasion to be targeted by the fatal insurgency. The document was obtained from a member of the Proud Boys by extremism journalist Andy Campbell as he researched his new book, We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Shered in a New Era of American Extremism. The book will be released on Tuesday. Campbell shared the document with the Guardian. The document’s author is Randy Ireland, who as president of the band’s New York chapter, the Hell’s Gate Bridge Chapter, is one of the most prominent Proud Boys in the Northeastern US. The paper was circulated via Telegram, the encrypted chat app widely used by the Proud Boys as an organizing tool, to at least nine other chapters in New York and beyond. Campbell told the Guardian that the group’s decentralized structure, in what it claims are 157 active chapters in all but three states, is one of the Proud Boys’ greatest strengths, as reflected in the autonomous nature of New York’s planning. . “Chapter leaders like Randy can create their own events, run independently of each other,” Campbell said. “Enrique Tarrio and other leaders are in prison, but these guys will continue what they are doing.”
“We will not disappoint”
The language in the planning document is overtly militaristic. The Irishman identifies himself as “Security Detail General”, while his subordinates in the chain of command are “Vice Presidents” of “Apprehensions”, “Scout Security” and “Squad Leaders”. The plan is for about 60 Proud Boys at the January 10 event in Manhattan to gather in seven “tactical groups” of five to eight men each (they’re all men, as one of the group’s dominant values is misogyny). Members are asked to bring protective gear, including “knife/knife protection, helmets, gloves, boots, etc.” and use radio channels, broadcasting or Telegram to communicate with each other. They must stick together in groups and under no circumstances allow “Normies” – ordinary Trump supporters who are not proud boys – or “Women” into their ranks. “Their presence will endanger the health and safety of everyone involved with Security and that simply cannot be allowed to happen!” Ireland writes. Maps reproduced on the back of the document show the positions that “scouts” and “tactical teams” should adopt at key points along the route of the march, which was scheduled to start at Columbus Circle and pass the Tower Trump. “This spot is very publicly understood to have special meaning for us,” the paper said, referring to Trump’s home on Fifth Avenue. “WE WILL NOT DISAPPOINT!” Campbell, who has been reporting on the Proud Boys since they began appearing at Trump rallies in early 2017, describes them as America’s most notorious political club. On the design paper, he sees equal parts imagination and risk. “These guys see themselves as super soldiers, like some kind of military outfit,” he said. “On one level it’s funny, as nothing is actually going to turn out the way they say. But on another level, it’s disturbing because it shows how much thought they put into this.” In We Are Proud Boys, Campbell follows the group from its birth in 2015-16 to its pivotal role on Jan. 6, when one member, Dominic Pezzola, became the first person to breach the U.S. Capitol. At least 30 Proud Boys have been charged in connection with the riot, including Tarrio and four others charged with conspiracy to riot – among the most serious charges handed down to date. The group was invented by the British-born founder of Vice magazine, Gavin McInnes, who described himself as a “Western chauvinist” and engaged in bigotry. McInnes introduced the name Proud Boys on his online chatshow in May 2016, introducing them as a “gang” and inventing a uniform, a black Fred Perry polo shirt with yellow trim. McInnes was careful to label his creation as harmless fun, a satirical patriotic male-only drinking club that later latched onto all things Trump. But Campbell argues that political violence was involved from the start. A Proud Boy was an organizer of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, during which an anti-fascist protester was murdered. The group has held violent rallies in Portland, Oregon. Outside a Republican event in New York in 2018, several members were arrested and charged with felonious assault.
“Street Level Violence”
Membership of the Proud Boys is structured into four ranks, known as “degrees”, the fourth being granted once you are “arrested or engaged in a serious violent battle for the cause”, as McInnes himself explained. In an interview with Campbell for the book, McInnes denied promoting violence and insisted the Proud Boys were never pre-emptively aggressive, but only reacted to left-wing attacks. This official line is repeated in the document published by the Guardian. Ireland are careful to portray the Proud Boys as a defensive team. He writes: “If any violence is unleashed, all Proud Boys are expected to respond immediately – only to the extent of eliminating and ending that threat to themselves or others. VERY IMPORTANT: Once the threat is neutralized, WE STOP!’ But there is a glaring contradiction: the Irishman presents his chapter as a nonviolent organization, yet it comes out looking for violence. He assigns the group, uninvited, the role of a vigilante police force. “We’re there as the first line of defense for everyone at the event,” he writes, then counters that the Proud Boys’ only role is to play a “back-up role” to law enforcement and “force them to do the job their”. That says a lot. He implies that if the police don’t attack anti-fascist protesters, the Proud Boys will. “I have reported on Proud Boys events where they stood back and relaxed as the police fired tear gas and other ammunition into the crowd of counter-protesters,” Campbell said. “Then the Proud Boys didn’t have to do what Randy Ireland is hinting at – come in and do the fight themselves.” For Campbell, the most troubling aspect of the document is that, with its soft-lensed doublespeak and contradictory meanings, it falls squarely into the main ambition of the Proud Boys: the normalization of political violence. Despite having so many leaders behind bars, the group is thriving. As new chapters emerge, Americans are increasingly inspired by the idea of heavily armed gangs in public spaces. The Proud Boys have posed as “security detail” at anti-abortion rallies, anti-vaccination rallies, pro-gun protests and, of course, Trump rallies. “The street-level violence that the Proud Boys helped create is now being carried out by regular people,” Campbell said. “You saw it on January 6th, you see it at Planned Parenthood and LGBTQ+ events where people are being harassed and attacked by everyday Americans.”
