Riot (or Worse) Thwarted in Idaho
A group of extremists are stopped from instigating a riot.
There have been ongoing warnings of growing right-wing extremism in the United States. Certainly, just this week we were reminded of the presence of organized groups, like the Proud Boys, at the 1/6 attack on the capitol. This weekend we have another example via the AP: 31 Patriot Front members arrested near Idaho pride event.
Authorities arrested 31 members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front near an Idaho pride event Saturday after they were found packed into the back of a U-Haul truck with riot gear.
The men were standing inside the truck wearing khakis, navy blue shirts and beige hats with white balaclavas covering their faces when Coeur d’Alene police stopped the U-Haul and began arresting them on the side of the road.
[…]
Police found riot gear, one smoke grenade, shin guards and shields inside the van, White said. They wore arm patches and logos on their hats that identified them as members of Patriot Front, he said.
I keep finding myself drawing on my background in Latin American politics and sadly applying it to the US. Not only am I seeing some members of the elite classes (and within politics specifically) embracing authoritarian thinking because they fear their way of life is threatened (in highly exaggerated and incorrect ways, I would note) but we are increasingly seeing groups form that are willing to engage in political violence. I can’t help but be reminded of the proliferation of guerrilla groups in the region in the 1960s (not to mention the paramilitary groups in Colombia both in the 1960s, but most prominently in the 1990s and 2000s).
When a group calls itself the “Patriot Front,” dresses in paramilitary outfits, and loads into the back of a U-Haul filled with smoke grenades and riot shields to be transported to a scheduled event, no good can come of it. I know some will want to call this LARPing as a way of ridiculing it, and that thought did occur to me, but the reality is that this is deadly serious stuff. Showing up to counter-protest is one thing. Putting on a uniform and bringing tools of disruption is yet another.
Their t-shirt had the phrase “retake America” on the back and they appear to be willing to use violence to do so. Indeed, I don’t normally use wire service photos in these posts, but I have included a Reuters photo above because I think that the visual is jarringly significant. The uniforms, the slogans, and the covered faces tell an important tale.
Patriot Front is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “a white nationalist hate group” that formed after the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.
“Patriot Front focuses on theatrical rhetoric and activism that can be easily distributed as propaganda for its chapters across the country,” the Southern Poverty Law Center said of the group.
The group’s manifesto calls for the formation of a white ethnostate in the United States, the Southern Poverty Law Center said.
It is important to understand that you get a group like this via the same kind of radicalization we ostensibly fought two wars to stop in the past couple of decades. This is about groups of people being convinced that they have to take up violence to stop “decadence” or “communism” and the like. They listen to people like MTG talk about how we are all going to cease being straight in a couple of generations and don’t laugh at her, they believe her.
And like some of the trollish denizens of this site, they just listen to and spout nonsense because it reinforces their beliefs and identities.
There is not a lot of actual difference between a group like this and al Qaeda or ISIS in terms of the social process that creates them (obviously, there are thankfully worlds of difference in capability–at least at the moment). It is a disturbing short trip from riot gear in a U-Haul to some more violent action.
(I suspect some will find that assessment over the top, but long-term readers know I am not prone to hyperbole–we have a real problem and it is growing).
What do almost all terrorist groups have in common? Failure.
Violence reduces support while increasing the numbers and commitment of the opposition. This is a nation of people who live in suburban housing developments, have jobs, have commutes, have investments, have cars and kids and loyalty cards at their grocery store. The overwhelming mass of Americans is not radical and sure as hell won’t be happy to have bombs going off and snarling traffic.
They listen to people like MTG talk about how we are all going to cease being straight in a couple of generations and don’t laugh at her, they believe her.
If your idea of straight comes out of guns, right-wing Christianity, and MAGA, you might have a good reason to fear your lack of popularity. There was a reveal about the nut-job Catholic cult Amy Barrett, and the leader, the guy who told her who to marry, was accused of showering with his 11-year old daughter. She’s going to overturn Roe and the GOP is waging war against gay people but the call is coming from inside the house here regarding grooming and power. And you can’t revere Trump, guns, and heterosexuality without having some flickering of awareness about what a blight ‘real’ American heterosexuality is turning out to be.
It’s almost as if the 75 or 80% of the citizenry who pay no attention to politics and such until a week or two before the elections should start paying more attention, or something.
Semi-seriously, could we just give them MTG’s district in Georgia and let the esteemed congresswoman be their queen? We could relocate anyone who wanted out of the district, then build a wall around it.
@Modulo Myself: There is an apt article in WAPO about a Georgia woman and rabid supporter of MTG. She’s made MAGA politics her whole life. She does local organizing, hosts events, and even has plans to reconstruct two bags of shredded documents she literally dumpster dived for behind the board of elections office. She’s convinced there’s evidence of something in there. To me, she understands nothing, and the easiest way to make herself feel like she understands is conspiracy theories.
@Michael Reynolds:
On the one hand, correct.
On the other, I saw how, for decades, a small and unpopular set of groups created a great deal ov havoc in Colombia. Conditions are not the same, to be sure, but it is nonetheless a sobering example of how a handful of people can cause a lot of trouble.
Moreover, I fear that the model here is not guerrilla groups, but paramilitary organizations who are ostensibly dedicated to “preserving values” or somesuch. Groups like this one, the Proud Boys, the Oathkeepers, etc.
There’s a fantasy among these groups that if they ignite a war with the ‘other,’ white citizens will rally to their cause and that law enforcement will step aside. A citizen saw something peculiar and turned them in, we have no reason to believe that this citizen was sympathetic to those participating in the pride event. In truth, the person was acting to protect their community. Law enforcement reacted as you would hope to protect their community. We’ll leave aside for now, the speculation that if this had been a truck load of Black Panthers, they would have kicked the sh!t out of them or worse.
That this and other ‘militia’ operations have failed miserably will likely drive the planning and execution of the plans deeper underground and the end result will be deadlier.
Your reference to various Latin American guerrilla isn’t hyperbole.
The only real surprise in this piece, and it’s genuinely heartening, is that the Coeur d’Alene police busted these bozos. Too often the cops are these bozos.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I don’t doubt that they can cause a lot of trouble. But the FBI still exists, as do state police forces. And Opsec is a nightmare in a world where everyone walks around with a smart phone. Persec is frequently compromised by something as simple as Facebook. Technology makes the modern world very hard for terrorists. These people would have to learn a much, much higher level of tradecraft.
I wrote a caper book and I wanted perfect Opsec and Persec for my protagonist. The best I felt I could do in the face of police and intelligence attention was a 24 hour window. We are all walking around with open mikes and cameras and GPS locators, not to mention credit cards, email, text, drivers licenses, internet addresses and facial recognition.
I just came back to the US through customs. I have a trusted traveler card, but even so it usually take a minute or two. This time? Ten seconds: facial recognition cleared me, my wife and daughter before we had time to realize it was happening. Proud Boys et al don’t have the extraordinary discipline required, so long as the FBI remains loyal.
@Michael Reynolds: Which is why 1/6 was prevented?
And why mass shootings are constantly being thwarted?
I mean, I take your general point, but you are sounding a bit too cavalier about it all.
It is like the horror stories right wingers tell themselves about bussed in “illegals” voting for the Democrats.
Or the horror stories about “Antifa” irregulars being bussed in to destroy the local infrastructure and kill local patriots.
These idiots actually believed that and decided to mount up and descend upon a Pride parade. In Idaho. What a bunch of fucking idiots. Morons.
The brown shirt gang that could not shoot straight. Weird ass fuckers.
I’m going to give a listen to Private Idaho by B-52s just because.
@Steven L. Taylor:
The model to fear is the Klan. The Klan was a terrorist group which had integrated itself completely with all factions of the state in the Jim Crow south. White southerners may not have all admired the activities of the Klan, but they were on the side of the state, and the Klan was one of its arms. The GOP is becoming a white southern government in the south in 1920,, and these guys are ready to become the Klan.
@gVOR08: North Idaho has always been a whole notha world. It was even in the 90s when my ex-wife and I lived in Spokane. It even presents itself as a separate state–like in the Dakotas and Carolinas.
@Steven L. Taylor: To some degree, I see his optimism as “not happening to most of us.” At more cynical times, I see it as “won’t be likely to happen to me; that’s all that matters.”
@Steven L. Taylor:
On 1/6 the FBI wasn’t looking. They are slow to recognize threats. And nothing can stop the crazed loner. But groups, in order to be groups, have to communicate. There are two ways to do that: electronically and in the flesh. Neither is secure.
I had a debate with my techie daughter back in the heyday of Silk Road. She argued for the power of encryption. I argued for the power of carelessness. Mr. Ulbricht, the creator of Silk Road, is doing double life in a Tucson prison. The hard lesson I learned early in my crime days was that the game is not fox and hounds, it’s tightrope walker and ground. The bad guy has to never make a mistake, and the ground doesn’t have to do anything but exist.
I gotta say that this is all very reminiscent of the extremist groups that were forming in the 80s and 90s, like The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord and the Branch Davidians. Let’s not forget loony tunes like Timothy McVeigh and Randy Weaver. Before them there was the Klan.
I don’t mean to say this is nothing new, just that right wing extremists are as American as apple pie. It does feel like there is a qualitative difference now, but I am uncertain if that is real or just the magnifying of the internet (which is a real problem on it’s own).
I am disturbed by the supportive rhetoric the Proud Boys, 3%ers, etc get from certain FOX personalities and the apparent sympathetic treatment they receive from law enforcement, and the all too real recruitment of LEOs and veterans into these groups.
But they have always painted themselves in red, white, and blue, and proclaimed that only they are the true patriots of America.
@Michael Reynolds:
Indeed. Seems a considerable caveat. Bad enough historically, with, say, Att’y General Cruz?
I remain shocked that the Idaho police stopped this, as the Portland police have been perfectly willing to let similar right wing extremist groups go wild in that city, and the Seattle police are not much better.
Either the Coeur d’Alene police force is doing something right that the others are not, or there’s something else going on.
I suspect this was a turf war among right wing extremist groups. Perhaps the local police are more Proud Boy types, and don’t like these Patriot Front vermin because of far right political reasons.
@OzarkHillbilly:
In order to be a full member of Oath Keepers, you have to have current or prior military, law enforcement, firefighting, or other first responder experience.
Anyone else can only be an associate member.
@Gustopher:
The police are still a part of society. The thing about being gay or trans is that it happens to everybody. No matter who you are, you could have a gay child or a trans child. Doesn’t matter. You can raise your kids to be x and y and z, but you can’t raise them to be straight if they’re not. You just can’t. If you are a terrible person, you might try but you will destroy most of your life in trying.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
True. OTOH, the 31 arrested were from states all across the Great Plains and Rockies. Much like the Bundy family events, where there’s a core group that comes from other places, and not so much the locals. There are many people willing to mouth the attitude; not that many who are willing/can afford to let the business/job slide and actually attend.
I support Steven’s view.
I live in Harney County, Oregon, which is where the Bundy occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge occurred in 2016. Just like this event, most of the participants in the Bundy occuapation were from out-of-state. However, some of the locals were “deputized” by Bundy and remain a potent part of our community–energized by social media and participation in various far-right splinter groups.
We just had an election for nonpartisan county positions. All were won by Republicans backed by outside money and slick campaign support.
Nonpartisan, professional, ethical policing and justice and is the thin blue line between rule of law and far-right bullies who want to take over. If a significant number of Republicans don’t accept that the Party of Lincoln is now the Party of Trump, which stands for corruption, authoritarianism, and labeling anyone who is isn’t white, straight, and evangelical Christian as undesirable, I fear the worst.
@Gustopher:
A couple years ago I watched a Des Moines cop hassle a homeless dude outside of Target for no reason.
Dude was sporting the badge from The Punisher. Not a pin, it was sewn on.
Homeless guy was not a problem. I was sitting waiting for a taxi for almost a half hour and guy was cool as shit sitting the shade and enjoying a well deserved cigarette. He was not bothering anyone.
Cops rolled up and fucked with him for no reason.
When I got home I emailed my city council person. Nothing came of it.
A cop wearing that logo is self-identifying as a fascist. The cop shop that let him sew that badge on his uniform shirt and did not correct him and discipline him is complicit. The city is complicit. This cannot happen.
I was fucking gob-smacked he was allowed to do that and get away with that bullshit.
I did not intervene. I have no desire to get thumped and arrested. I should have. It would have been the right thing to do. I didn’t.
@Gustopher:
The 3%ers narced ’em out.
That’s my theory.
Mmm… CDA is a lovely city that attracts a lot of tourists. I wonder if that played a role in influencing this decision. Doubt City Hall wants the town’s reputation to be marred by roving bands of nazi thugs.
@Paine:
I remember being told once that the Las Vegas Strip is one of the safest places in the country to wander around at night because the “undesirables” learned painfully that no one hassles the tourists. Don’t know if that’s still true, I haven’t been there for years.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Sure, and if we are all loved each other there would never be another war.
This is a serious thing, and we should take it seriously. And, I have optimism that we will be able to deal with it.
On the note of “this is serious”, I do wonder about whether many of these people in the “Patriot Front” understand the seriousness of violence, the seriousness of what they are doing. It is serious, but do they know that? There is a kind of person who engages in violent chatter at the drop of a hat, not seeming to realize how close thinking a thing, saying a thing, and doing the thing are.
To be fair, there are clearly some people in that movement who do know how serious it is. They are a different kind of trouble. I’m hoping the 1/6 prosecutions round them up.
I know it’s petty, but that many Nazis in the back of a U-Haul is also probably a traffic violation.
https://twitter.com/neilm2/status/1535987467979038721?s=21&t=eG8dJqybCkPG0qSutbSFaA
I think they should go for the driver’s license as well. And seatbelt law violations for the cargo Nazis.
@Gustopher: My guess, much like I would say for things like school districts, is that it’s easier to have a really competent cohort if you’re only hiring a hundred or so (or even better, a few dozen) staff members than it is if you need a force of a thousand or more. Also, Portland’s history of being where many who expanded from the South landed doesn’t help in this case.
@Modulo Myself:
The inevitable result of the Southern Strategy started in 1964. Cynical GOP leaders thought the Southerners were a bunch of yokels who they could manage. Wiser leaders said that by inviting the Klan-adjacent (wink) into the Party, they would eventually become the Klan.
That Idaho Sheriff isn’t messing around. He just published the name and home address of every single person arrested.
Here they are if anyone wants to check if they know anyone on the list:
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22058494/dailypresslog.pdf
@EddieInCA: @EddieInCA:
Some major media reports were only one of the group was from Idaho, but about a third of them were.
“Either the Coeur d’Alene police force is doing something right that the others are not, or there’s something else going on.”
Somebody reported a bunch of people wearing masks getting in the back of a truck. Police were probably worried it was a bunch of people wearing masks to support efforts to keep covid down.
Steve
@dazedandconfused: That has everyone arrested during some time period. Skimming the ones with Criminal Conspiracy charges, and I think I saw two from Idaho — but skimming might have gotten it wrong.
I was briefly wondering about Omar Khaled Kamal, since we do have a surprisingly diverse group of Nazis in the PNW, but he seems unrelated.
@Gustopher:
According to another article I read, most of the ones arrested were NOT from Idaho. Most were from all over, except for California. None from here for some reason.
After reading the Kootenai Co Sheriff’s Office Booking Summary Report, Press Log at the link provided by EddieInCA I see that of the 31 citizens charged with Criminal Conspiracy two show Idaho addresses:
DURHAM, WINSTON WORTH
2450 GENESEE JULETTA RD, GENESEE, ID 83832
JESSOP, RICHARD JACOB
2591 COMMODORI RD, IDAHO FALLS, ID 83406
I am compelled to note that the lone Illinoisan arrested in this fiasco is from Freeburg.
A town that refuses to change the name of the High School mascot from The Midgets.
@Michael Reynolds:
That made me think of one of my favorite cartoons. The world is simpler than many would like to believe.
@EddieInCA:
Yes, there were very few from Idaho, so this group was assembled on the internet.
I wonder if an FBI agent pretending to be one of them recommended everybody dress the same so “we” can easily identify ourselves, and maybe save some gas by everybody getting into ONE truck, something without windows and side doors. Maybe volunteered to rent the truck and drive it…
What do you call 31 bottoms piled into a U-Haul truck?
No – seriously – what do you call that shit?
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bottom
@Skookum: @MarkedMan: One of the most discouraging things I’ve seen in my 72 years of life is the ease with which the GOP has allowed itself to become the Trump Party (with all that entails and implies). Even a cynical opportunist like Mitch McConnell should be able to recognize that the existential threat to American democracy is not worth the short-term gain. Those who warned against the “Southern Strategy” of playing footsy with the Klan
were indeed prescient.
@dazedandconfused:
“Some major media reports were only one of the group was from Idaho, but about a third of them were.”
I’m old enough to remember when local racists hated the idea of “outside agitators” coming into that their town and causing trouble.