A jailed Jan 6 defendant is trying to spin up an Oath Keepers for the America First set. Is it a real threat?
  • Sanctus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    11 days ago

    If the CIA can make entire fake criminal phone companies to catch drug dealers they can do something about these extremists. I hope they are, and that they haven’t joined them.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    2·
    11 days ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    He’s accused of multiple violent crimes, with charges ranging from an “act of physical violence in a Capitol building” to “assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon, inflicting bodily injury” — as well as “obstruction of an official proceeding” and “civil disorder.”

    However, the militia homepage also listed a bevy of other right-wing celebs who soon disappeared from the site, including Silk (of Diamond and Silk fame), who was named as national recruiting coordinator; Florida GOP congressional candidate Anthony Sabatini, who was listed as general counsel; as well as Richard Mack founder of the Constitutional Sheriff movement, which alleges county sheriffs can override federal and state law in their jurisdictions.

    The supposed NAPALM communications chief gave a response to questions about the militia through his own media rep, who texted a bland statement: “Stew is an ardent supporter of the J6 political prisoners and was happy to lend a hand when asked to do so.” When Rolling Stone asked if Peters was actively involved (and noted it was odd for Peters to be outsourcing his message-man duties to a deputy), the rep responded only with a laughing emoji.

    Lang’s militia brags of “20,000+ members” including “active sheriffs, former military, farmers & pastors!” But extremism experts consulted by WIRED suggest that figure may be inflated by nearly a factor of ten.

    To wit: From Alabama to Montana the state militia groups have a very narrow band of followers — ranging from 141 to 182 — despite massive differences in population sizes between e.g. Alaska and California.

    “We should be very concerned about how willing a significant subset of the population is to embrace the idea of political violence,” he says, “against ‘the enemy’ who has been positioned as subhuman, and as somehow less than this loyal army of patriots who are going to fight and die for this country.”

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