Trump’s useful thugs: how the Republican party offered a home to the Proud Boys
The long read: Early in Trump’s presidency, emboldened neo-Nazi and fascist groups came out into the open but were met with widespread revulsion. So the tactics of the far right changed, becoming more insidious – and much more successful
via the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jan/21/donald-trump-useful-thugs-proud-boys-far-right-republican-party
Outside, antifascist and antiracist demonstrators gathered to protest against McInnes’s appearance. As guests began to leave, a score of Proud Boys hung back and prepared for the coming brawl. Scuffles and beatings followed, as they seemed to wherever the Proud Boys went. A dozen members of the protofascist gang stomped demonstrators who had been caught in the open. “Do you feel brave now, faggot?” one yelled, according to the documentary film-maker Sandi Bachom and the photojournalist Shay Horse, who witnessed the attack. Bachom’s footage shows one assailant screaming “Faggot!” as he kicks someone curled up on the ground. Other footage includes a Proud Boy bragging, “Dude, I had one of their fucking heads, and I was just fucking smashing it in the pavement!” “That son of a bitch!” he continues. “He was a fucking foreigner.” One of his friends yells the Proud Boys slogan: “Fuck around, find out!”