Stand back and stand by!:
“1776 motherf---ers.”
That’s what an associate texted to Enrique Tarrio, then the leader of the Proud Boys, just after members of the group stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In a new indictment that prosecutors filed against them, variations on that idea abound: Members refer to the insurrection as a glorious revival of 1776 again and again, with almost comic predictability.
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It’s tempting to dismiss all the 1776 talk as something akin to adolescent revolutionary cosplay. But the way 1776 comes up in the indictment — combined with some surprising new details it reveals — should prompt a serious look at how far-right extremist groups genuinely think about the long struggle that they envision themselves waging.
In short, groups such as these generally are driven by a dangerous vision of popular sovereignty. It essentially holds that the will of the truly authentic “people,” a flexible category they get to define, is being suppressed, requiring periodic “resets” of the system, including via violent, extralegal means.
Such groups aren’t going away anytime soon. We should understand what drives them.
The new indictment that a grand jury returned on Monday against Tarrio and four other Proud Boys is for “seditious conspiracy.” This requires prosecutors to prove that at least two people conspired to use force to overthrow the U.S. government or to subvert the execution of U.S. law.
To build this case, prosecutors have sought to present extensive evidence that the Proud Boys fully intended to use force to subvert governmental authority and relevant laws concerning the transfer of presidential power. This included arming themselves with paramilitary gear and discussing violent disruptions online in advance.
The Proud Boys, who have pleaded not guilty to earlier charges, have claimed they merely armed themselves as protection against leftists. But the indictment alleges that they attacked police officers, breached police lines with violence, and helped coordinate the storming of the Capitol in real time.
What’s more, in the indictment prosecutors disclose highly revealing text exchanges between Tarrio — who was not present that day — and another member later on Jan. 6. The exchanges appear to refer back to a document Tarrio possessed called “1776 returns,” which reportedly contains a detailed scheme to attack government buildings.
Those text exchanges compare Jan. 6 to both 1776 and the attack on “the Winter Palace,” which helped lead to the Russian Revolution. This seeming reference back to that document perhaps suggests they viewed Jan. 6 as the successful execution of a premeditated plan.
That’s pretty striking stuff. Whether prosecutors will successfully prove seditious conspiracy remains to be seen, but right now the evidence appears strong that Proud Boys members did scheme to thwart a legitimately elected government from taking power with coordinated violence.
In this context, while all the 1776-oriented talk might seem like posturing, it points to something real and enduring on the far right.
It isn’t easy to pin down the Proud Boys, who tend to define themselves as defenders of Western civilization. But Kathleen Belew, an expert in right-wing extremism, has discerned hints of white power ideology in some of the group’s symbolism and messaging.
As Belew notes, the white power movement includes opponents of non-white immigration, militia groups, and white supremacists, loosely bound by an ideology centered on the violent defense of whiteness. On Jan. 6, numerous such groups and adherents attacked the Capitol.
Tarrio’s views appear pretty convoluted. In a 2021 interview, he admitted that the 2020 election had not been stolen from former president Donald Trump, and went through the motions of disavowing the Jan. 6 violence. Yet he openly celebrated the “fear” that members of Congress felt of “the people,” and helped mobilize Proud Boys to mass around the Capitol that day.
So how to make sense of that, as well as the broader tangle of ideologies on the far right?
A helpful framework comes from Joseph Lowndes, a scholar of the right wing at the University of Oregon. As Lowndes notes, a longtime strain in American political culture treats procedural democracy as itself deeply suspect, as subverting a more authentic subterranean popular will.
For such ideologues, what constitutes “the people” is itself redefined by spasmodic revolutionary acts, including violence. The people’s sovereignty, and with it the defining lines of the republic, are also effectively redrawn, or even rebirthed, by such outbursts of energy and militant action.
In this vision, Lowndes told me, the “people” and the “essence of the republic” are “made new again through acts of violent cleansing.” He noted that in this imagining, the “people” are something of a “fiction,” one that is essentially created out of the violent “act.”
“This regeneration through violence is going to be with us for a long time," Lowndes said, "because it is fundamental to the right-wing political imagination.”
Lurking behind all the 1776 cosplay, then, is a tangle of very real radical and extreme ideologies. Importantly, they’re sincerely believed in, and they aren’t going away.
“1776 motherf---ers.”
That’s what an associate texted to Enrique Tarrio, then the leader of the Proud Boys, just after members of the group stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In a new indictment that prosecutors filed against them, variations on that idea abound: Members refer to the insurrection as a glorious revival of 1776 again and again, with almost comic predictability.
Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates
It’s tempting to dismiss all the 1776 talk as something akin to adolescent revolutionary cosplay. But the way 1776 comes up in the indictment — combined with some surprising new details it reveals — should prompt a serious look at how far-right extremist groups genuinely think about the long struggle that they envision themselves waging.
In short, groups such as these generally are driven by a dangerous vision of popular sovereignty. It essentially holds that the will of the truly authentic “people,” a flexible category they get to define, is being suppressed, requiring periodic “resets” of the system, including via violent, extralegal means.
Such groups aren’t going away anytime soon. We should understand what drives them.
The new indictment that a grand jury returned on Monday against Tarrio and four other Proud Boys is for “seditious conspiracy.” This requires prosecutors to prove that at least two people conspired to use force to overthrow the U.S. government or to subvert the execution of U.S. law.
To build this case, prosecutors have sought to present extensive evidence that the Proud Boys fully intended to use force to subvert governmental authority and relevant laws concerning the transfer of presidential power. This included arming themselves with paramilitary gear and discussing violent disruptions online in advance.
The Proud Boys, who have pleaded not guilty to earlier charges, have claimed they merely armed themselves as protection against leftists. But the indictment alleges that they attacked police officers, breached police lines with violence, and helped coordinate the storming of the Capitol in real time.
What’s more, in the indictment prosecutors disclose highly revealing text exchanges between Tarrio — who was not present that day — and another member later on Jan. 6. The exchanges appear to refer back to a document Tarrio possessed called “1776 returns,” which reportedly contains a detailed scheme to attack government buildings.
Those text exchanges compare Jan. 6 to both 1776 and the attack on “the Winter Palace,” which helped lead to the Russian Revolution. This seeming reference back to that document perhaps suggests they viewed Jan. 6 as the successful execution of a premeditated plan.
That’s pretty striking stuff. Whether prosecutors will successfully prove seditious conspiracy remains to be seen, but right now the evidence appears strong that Proud Boys members did scheme to thwart a legitimately elected government from taking power with coordinated violence.
In this context, while all the 1776-oriented talk might seem like posturing, it points to something real and enduring on the far right.
It isn’t easy to pin down the Proud Boys, who tend to define themselves as defenders of Western civilization. But Kathleen Belew, an expert in right-wing extremism, has discerned hints of white power ideology in some of the group’s symbolism and messaging.
As Belew notes, the white power movement includes opponents of non-white immigration, militia groups, and white supremacists, loosely bound by an ideology centered on the violent defense of whiteness. On Jan. 6, numerous such groups and adherents attacked the Capitol.
Tarrio’s views appear pretty convoluted. In a 2021 interview, he admitted that the 2020 election had not been stolen from former president Donald Trump, and went through the motions of disavowing the Jan. 6 violence. Yet he openly celebrated the “fear” that members of Congress felt of “the people,” and helped mobilize Proud Boys to mass around the Capitol that day.
So how to make sense of that, as well as the broader tangle of ideologies on the far right?
A helpful framework comes from Joseph Lowndes, a scholar of the right wing at the University of Oregon. As Lowndes notes, a longtime strain in American political culture treats procedural democracy as itself deeply suspect, as subverting a more authentic subterranean popular will.
For such ideologues, what constitutes “the people” is itself redefined by spasmodic revolutionary acts, including violence. The people’s sovereignty, and with it the defining lines of the republic, are also effectively redrawn, or even rebirthed, by such outbursts of energy and militant action.
In this vision, Lowndes told me, the “people” and the “essence of the republic” are “made new again through acts of violent cleansing.” He noted that in this imagining, the “people” are something of a “fiction,” one that is essentially created out of the violent “act.”
“This regeneration through violence is going to be with us for a long time," Lowndes said, "because it is fundamental to the right-wing political imagination.”
Lurking behind all the 1776 cosplay, then, is a tangle of very real radical and extreme ideologies. Importantly, they’re sincerely believed in, and they aren’t going away.
