Fresh out of federal prison, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio suggests he’s still in charge as the far-right organization looks to regroup.

Fresh out of federal prison, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio suggests he’s still in charge as the far-right organization looks to regroup.

  • WatDabney@sopuli.xyz
    157·
    4 days ago

    As intended.

    Trump didn’t pardon all those people as just, or even primarily, a PR move. He pardoned them so they could fight on his behalf again, and secure in the knowledge that he’ll be there to protect them from any potential consequences (and so that others would come forward to fight on his behalf, emboldened by the same assurance of immunity from consequences).

    They’re going to be his brownshirts.

    • Carmakazi@lemmy.world
      77·
      4 days ago

      A student of history would know that Hitler had Röhm killed and the brownshirts disbanded to consolidate power once the opposition and “secular” state were subsumed by the Party. But I don’t think these people plan that far ahead.

      • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
        34·
        4 days ago

        Iirc He got rid of the brown shirts when he got real control of the military, so he didn’t need them anymore. Trump will use the military for “legal” things and use/let the brown shirts do the illegal and messy things that competent officers wouldn’t do.

        • WideEyedStupid@lemmy.world
          4·
          3 days ago

          You’re sort of right, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. The German army was relatively small. Due to the Treaty of Versailles, they weren’t allowed to have a standing army of more than 100k.

          The real problem was… political. The brownshirts (the SA/Sturmabteilung) had grown so powerful that a lot of Nazi leadership started to see them as a problem. They were concerned about their own power. The SA leader, Ernst Röhm, actually wanted to absorb the official German army into the SA, but the official army never would have accepted this. The army leadership saw the SA for exactly what they were: undisciplined street thugs. They’d never have accepted Röhm’s leadership.

          To limit the power of the SA, the SS (Schutzstaffel), which was technically a part of the SA, was therefor placed under the control of Himmler. But when Röhm started to demand more influence over the army he made people very nervous and Himmler and Göring started to plot against him and went to Hitler with their ‘concerns.’ It didn’t help that Hitler was always paranoid and the SA had more than 3 million members. If you were a paranoid tyrant, you wouldn’t want anyone to have the loyalty of such a force, that could maybe one day be used against you.

          During the Night of the Long Knives Röhm was arrested for plotting to overthrow Hitler, and a few days later he was executed. He was not the only victim, of course. Pretty much the entire SA leadership was killed.

          Edit: clarity.

          • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
            4·
            3 days ago

            Yeah my read on that, maybe I’m wrong, is that when Hitler got control and loyalty of the real military, he no longer needed the brown shirts. The real military was real and the brown shirts were thugs. He needed the real military for obvious reasons. Throw in any leadership threats, real or exaggerated, and it was obvious what was going to happen.

            Apply that to now. Trump likely won’t get real control and undying loyalty of the military. Probably won’t have any leadership threats. Needs thugs to do what the military won’t do. Conclusion: he’ll keep them around.

            • WideEyedStupid@lemmy.world
              1·
              3 days ago

              Ha yes, well, I’m sure Hitler could have found something for 3+mil rabid followers to do, but they were just too big of a risk. Not just to him, but other Nazi leaders also thought Röhm had too much power. It was impossible to easily turn them into a well-functioning army, especially since there was already bad blood there. And with Himmler and Göring whispering in his ear, Hitler was never going to let the SA keep their power.

              The SS, though, grew more and more. Not only were they Hitler’s personal bodyguard, but they also had the Einsatzgruppen (death squads), the Gestapo and they were the ones who built all the concentration camps. Himmler and Göring had a lot of power too, obviously, but the SS was never seen as a bunch of thugs. More disciplined. Could work as an actual army. There was a class-element there as well. While the SA was mostly uneducated working class people, the SS were middle and upper class. More prestigious, I guess you could say.

              Imagine there are 10 million proud boys, terrorizing the U.S., and their leaders expect the U.S. military to join them? How would that work out? You can’t really piss them off because then you’d have millions of thugs turning against you, but you also know you can’t possibly make the army work with them - and even if you could force them to, would you want to? A bunch of undisciplined thugs wouldn’t function as an actual army. What would Trump have to do to solve this situation? Hitler chose the purge… wonder what Trump would do.

              I think Trump pardoned those 1500+ Jan 6. people specifically because of this. They’ll give him undying loyalty now and they know he can pardon them anyway, so they’d probably do whatever he wants. Though I’m not sure if he would literally give them orders. They’ll probably just do stuff they think he wants them to do, or things they want to do that they know Trump won’t mind. His own personal brownshirts. Or should I say black&goldshirts. I doubt they know he doesn’t actually care about them and will inevitably stab them in the back.

              About the military… I don’t know, honestly. Didn’t he say he wanted to get rid of the woke generals, or whatever? Is it possible for him to purge the military like that?

              • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
                3·
                3 days ago

                A lot of that is exactly what I was saying.

                A bunch of undisciplined thugs wouldn’t function as an actual army? What would Trump have to do to solve this situation? Hitler chose the purge… wonder what Trump would do.

                Yeah that’s what I saying. Hitler needed the real military because he was going to war with the Allies. Hitler knew he was going to war. You can’t do that 1) with a bunch of thugs, and 2) you can’t do that if thugs are in charge of the military. So when Hitler got real control and the undying loyalty of the military, he disbanded the thugs.

                Trump likely won’t get undying loyalty of the military, not the way Hitler did. So Trump will keep his thugs around.

                I think Trump pardoned those 1500+ Jan 6. people specifically because of this. They’ll give him undying loyalty now and they know he can pardon them anyway, so they’d probably do whatever he wants. Though I’m not sure if he would literally give them orders. …

                Yeah that’s what I’m saying. Trump wants thugs around. He may not be able to give them direct orders, but he knows they will generally go the direction he wants. They will generally beat up antifa and black lives matter protesters and intimidate people. And Trump can say “won’t someone rid me of this turbulent priest” if he really wants.

                • futatorius@lemm.ee
                  1·
                  3 days ago

                  Trump can say “won’t someone rid me of this turbulent priest” if he really wants

                  He’s already done that with Fauci, and pulled his Secret Service detail.

              • futatorius@lemm.ee
                2·
                3 days ago

                Not just to him, but other Nazi leaders also thought Röhm had too much power.

                All the high-ranking Nazis thought that about all their peers. Hitler had other issues with Röhm: he was a founder of the NSDAP, he was socialist, and he drew his support from the working class. There was also the gay thing: Hitler and Röhm were once inseparable, Röhm was the only senior Nazi to call Hitler by his given name and call him “du” in public, and there were rumors that Hitler and Röhm had been a couple during the early streetfighting days. Now that Hitler was aligning with the military and the industrialists, be was seeking whatever a Nazi’s idea of bourgeois respectability might be. So no more SA.

                • WideEyedStupid@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  3 days ago

                  Hmm, I see a pattern. It’s almost as if the rich and/or those in power don’t care about the working class, except to use them to reach their nefarious goals.

      • WatDabney@sopuli.xyz
        27·
        4 days ago

        I don’t think Trump plans that far ahead either, but that’s sort of beside the point, since he does have the right self-preservation instincts to arrive at the same basic conclusion, and for the same basic reasons.

        And beyond that, yeah…

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      15·
      4 days ago

      Charles’ journey through life has been an interesting one. I remember his blog in the early 00s as being something the right would always point me to in order to try to “school” me.

      Now look at him…

      • mojofrododojo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        3 days ago

        it’s funny to see how many ‘conservatives’ have recoiled from Trumpism, and depressing to see how many gleefully embraced it…

  • Rhoeri@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    3 days ago

    Wait… aren’t they those cowards that cried and turned on one another when they went to prison only to complain about the food choices?

    • cybersin@lemm.ee
      21·
      4 days ago

      The far-right loves law enforcement and the military, and the military and law enforcement love the far-right.

      Those that work forces…

      Dude could just say some tacticool bullshit like he was “securing government contacts” and they would eat it up.

  • Zier@fedia.io
    19·
    4 days ago

    If you put “proud boys” into the international translator it comes out as “tiny dicks”. So PB = TD

  • Rusty@lemmy.caEnglish
    19·
    4 days ago

    My first thought from the picture is that that guy is really into peanut butter.