Morning Briefing: Former Proud Boy is Candidate for Florida GOP Committeeman
Chris Barcenas, a former member of the far right violent extremist Proud Boys, is a candidate for Miami-Dade GOP executive committee as state committeeman.
Morning Briefing: Chris Barcenas, a former member of the far right extremist group the Proud Boys, is reportedly a candidate for a Miami-Dade GOP executive committee seat — “this time, for a state committeeman position.”
Barcenas, who has connections to the chair of the Moms for Liberty chapter in Miami-Dade County, is listed as a “qualified” candidate on the Miami-Dade GOP’s list of candidates.
Mark Adams Prieto reportedly “planned to commit a mass shooting at an Atlanta rap concert as a way of inciting a ‘race war’ has been indicted by a federal grand jury on hate crime and firearm charges,” and “hatched a plan in several discussions with two people working with the F.B.I. who posed as racist extremists.”
The State Department announced that it has designated the “largest neo-Nazi group in Sweden and its leaders as terrorists, only the second time it has applied the label to a white supremacist group known for a long history of violence.”
In Germany, this week “eight people accused of involvement in a suspected far-right plot to topple the German government went on trial,” and prosecutors have said that the “suspects believed in ‘conspiracy myths’ including Reich Citizens and QAnon ideology, and were convinced that Germany is ruled by a so-called deep state.”
Must Reads
Jeffrey Fleishman writes that “the U.S. is facing security threats in a presidential election year coming from Islamic militants, far-right extremists, leftist radicals and an array of zealots disgruntled over the nation’s culture wars and our polarized society. Officials are increasingly worried about the deepening strands of left- and right-wing venom rooted in antiestablishment anger and amplified by social media that are testing the government’s ability to track militants like Clendaniel and Russell… The race between President Biden and Donald Trump underscores the prospects for unrest and violence. GOP senators have asked the Secret Service to keep demonstrators farther from the Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. Protesters are also expected to arrive en masse at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where in 1968, during an era of intense upheaval around the Vietnam War that some suggest parallels today’s political tremors, police beat and tear-gassed hundreds of marchers.” [Los Angeles Times]
Christine Sarteschi writes that so-called sovereign citizens “have long been active in the U.S. and other countries. At the core of their beliefs is the denial of the government’s legitimacy. They commonly do not register their vehicles, acquire driver’s licenses or car insurance, or pay taxes. And they pose a significant threat to the public. One threat they pose is ‘paper terrorism,’ which involves harassing public officials with legal threats to intimidate them. Sometimes officials are targeted because they arrested or prosecuted someone from the movement. This method involves filing fake deeds and liens against public officials the sovereign citizens think wronged them. County recorders are sounding the alarm. This type of act – a form of fraud that can be illegal – is rare nationwide but common in some places, local and federal officials have said.” [The Conversation]
Linda Kinstler writes that “at some point — perhaps after all the Jan. 6 trials end, perhaps after a plaque honoring all those whose actions allowed Congress to resume functioning that day is at last erected — the kind of reorientation that Mr. Biden has called for, the rejection of vengeance and the embrace of the future, must come to pass. We have a duty to consider what it might take to bring it about and to envision a form of politics that is not premised on seemingly endless recrimination. This is not the first time our nation has survived a profound internal rupture, but it may be the first time in which the political ringleaders of the revolt may very well escape much accountability while hundreds of their followers serve jail time. In previous times of national crisis, the same spirit of mercy that Mr. Biden conjured generally applied to lower-level offenders, while those who had committed the worst crimes were the first to be arrested and tried for their treasonous acts.” [The New York Times]
What to expect from Radical Reports: Morning Briefing provides a daily round-up of reporting on the Radical Right; Extremist Links offers a weekly round-up of extremists activities including the white supremacist and militia movements; Narratives of the Right delivers weekly analysis of the current narratives in far right online spaces and promoted by right-wing media; and Research Desk provides monthly highlights research and analysis from academia on the Radical Right.