U.S. Politics

[Rick Plant]

Every single Republican senator refused to show up to their jobs on the Banking and Housing committee to consider President Biden's Federal Reserve nominees. The committee could not conduct business because there was not a quorum. The Federal Reserve is the most important institution in America in the fight against inflation. But five critical positions are unfilled because Republican Senate partisans are blocking a vote. Republicans also boycotted the committe vote in order to prevent these important positions from being filled. The GOP goal is to keep inflation rising to sabotage President Biden's presidency because they think it will help them politically. Senate Republicans are purposely hurting Americans and our economy for their own lust for power.




Senate Republicans boycott committee vote on Biden's Federal Reserve nominees

Senate Republicans are blocking all President Biden's nominees for the Federal Reserve from advancing as they raise questions over his pick to be the top banking regulator. In a statement early Tuesday, ranking member Pat Toomey announced Republicans would not attend the meeting, meaning Democrats would not have the quorum necessary to hold the votes.

The Senate Banking Committee was forced to delay votes Tuesday on advancing the nominations of Jerome Powell to serve a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve and Lael Brainard as vice chair. The committee was also supposed to move forward with the nominations of Sarah Bloom Raskin as vice chair of supervision and Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson as members of the Board of Governors.

Democrats warned the boycott could hurt American workers amid soaring inflation and hamper the recovery from the pandemic. But Republicans skipped the meeting over one specific nominee – President Biden's choice of Raskin as the Fed's top banking regulator, responsible for developing regulatory policy recommendations.

"They're not showing up to do their constitutional duty that they were elected to do," said Senator Jon Tester, who pointed out Republicans showed up during the last administration to vote for nominees who he said were not qualified.

All 12 Democrats during the meeting signaled they would support all of the nominees even as Republicans were absent. Brown dismissed the idea of breaking up the votes to advance Biden's picks for the Central Bank.

Democrats also blasted Republicans Tuesday, saying if they cared so much about inflation and the impact of rising prices on Americans, they would show up to make sure the Fed has a fully functioning board.

"They're taking away probably the most important tool that we have, and that's the Federal Reserve to combat inflation," Brown said of his Republican colleagues.

There are three empty seats on the Federal Reserve board. Powell and Brainard are serving in their roles in an acting capacity. If Mr. Biden's nominees are confirmed, it would be the first time the Fed has its full seven-member board in a decade.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-republicans-block-federal-reserve-nominees-sarah-bloom-raskin/

[Rick Plant]

Embrace of accelerationism signals a potential escalation of violence by Proud Boys (Part II)



The caption under the video, despite being couched in edgy humor, leaves little to the imagination.

The 27-second video compiling screengrabs of news headlines about a Planned Parenthood clinic in Knoxville, Tenn. that was destroyed by arson on New Year’s Eve backed with a hip hop track went out on the Great Basin Proud Boys Telegram account, with the giddy commentary: “Bro this year is about to be LIT.”

This is part two in a three-part series on accelerationism in the Proud Boys movement.

You read part one here: https://www.rawstory.com/accelerationist-proud-boys/

At least one other Proud Boys chapter, Maryland-DC, forwarded the post.

An earlier post on the channel was even more direct.

“When I hear that California is going to be an abortion sanctuary state and I live less than an hour from the California border,” the caption reads. Text superimposed on an image of a cartoon donkey completes the thought: “I’m makin’ pipe bombs.”

According to the pinned message on the Great Basin Proud Boys channel, the account is primarily run by the president and vice president of the northern Nevada chapter. Raw Story was not able to determine their identities.

In January, the Maryland DC chapter distributed a TikTok video of Republican Gov. Larry Hogan discussing COVID control measures that featured the absurd headline “Military state is beginning” on its Telegram channel. The commentary accompanying the video on the Maryland DC Proud Boys channel included a personal attack on the governor, ending with the hashtag #bringbackpublichanging.

Content advocating for terrorism and the execution of elected officials swapped on Telegram by Great Basin and Maryland-DC along with other hardline chapters reflects a kind of rhetoric wouldn’t be out of place in discussions among members of The Base and Atomwaffen, said Matthew Kriner, the managing director of the Accelerationist Research Consortium and a senior research scholar at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Following a law enforcement crackdown beginning in 2017, several members of the two groups are either serving sentences or awaiting trial on charges of murder, conspiracy to threaten journalists, swatting, stockpiling explosive material and firearms violations.

“That kind of rhetoric is indicative of accelerationist tactics and views,” Kriner said. “That kind of rhetoric is far more likely to be found in chat rooms of The Base, Atomwaffen or Feuerkrieg Division discussing tactics that they believe are necessary for the overthrow and collapse of the political system.”

Content promoting accelerationism, proactive violence and overt white power ideology is becoming increasingly prevalent in online spaces where Proud Boys interact, while the group as a whole serves as a bridge from mainstream conservative entities like the GOP to more extreme far-right activity. As an example of the content that blatantly celebrates violence, posts on the Great Basin Proud Boys channel routinely celebrates Ted Kaczynski, the eco-terrorist who carried out a bombing campaign over the course of 17 years that resulted in three deaths and dozens of injuries.

“We’re seeing that these communities are absorbing and interacting with neo-fascist content that is distinct from the broader Proud Boys community,” Kriner said. “The broader Proud Boys community tends to be far-right conservative or crypto-fascist.”

Progressives and centrists might not see much difference between the two positions, Kriner said, but the distinction is critical to understanding when extremists feel justified in resorting to violence.

“The difference is that the crypto-fascists and far-right conservatives don’t generally call for proactive violence,” he said, “whereas the neo-fascist accelerationists explicitly call for violence as a means of generating action.”

Michael Loadenthal, who serves on the advisory board of the Accelerationist Research Consortium, said accelerationism should not be understood as a movement in the same way that MAGA or the anti-vaccination mobilization are.

“It’s more of a brand and an aesthetic and a tactical repertoire,” he said. “Use of firearms, scary posters with black, white and red colors, advocacy for violence, actively racist and homophobic, advocacy for industrial sabotage — if you do these things, you’re accelerationist.”

The Telegram channels for the Great Basin, Mid-Missouri and Maryland-DC Proud Boys chapters promote particularly accelerationist content, alongside posts that are openly racist and antisemitic as well as violent. The appearance of more than a dozen men attached to the Maryland-DC chapter who wore Proud Boys clothing, skull masks and tactical gear to the Defeat the Mandates rally in Washington DC last month showed that the accelerationist tendency has moved beyond digital space and into the streets.

In one example of antisemitism, a user named “Simon Bolivar” commented on a post in the Maryland-DC channel last month purporting to show immigrants from Latin America who were secretly smuggled into the country on a flight into New York City.

“How ironic would it be if we turn these migrants into national socialists and have them go after the jews?” “Simon Bolivar” commented. “Just tell them Henry Kissinger destroyed their nation and they need to avenge their ancestors.”

Meanwhile, a post in the Mid-Missouri advocating for “decentralized banking” uses the “triple echo” parentheses — a code used by white supremacists for Jews — to charge that “(((They)))” create wage slaves by encouraging usury,” while another post displaying a Jewish caricature suggests that Jews don’t like talk about “natural immunity” because they’re behind the pharmaceutical industry’s push for bigger profits.

The overt antisemitism displayed on the Mid-Missouri and Maryland-DC channels is at odds with the Proud Boys party line, which discourages discussion of the “JQ” — a shorthand among white supremacists for “Jewish question.”

The Great Basin chapter’s endorsement of fascism is not veiled. Twice in December the Telegram channel for the chapter shared a video with the headline “It’s f***ing Mussolini Monday” that showed the fascist dictator striking various poses accompanied by a goofy dance music soundtrack. Another video shared on the channel in December depicts a speech by British fascist Oswald Mosley.

Kristofer Goldsmith, a senior fellow at the Innovation Lab of Human Rights First, has noted that a Telegram channel named “Western Chauvinism” — named for the Proud Boys foundational doctrine — generates fascist content that specifically targets Proud Boys and is widely circulated in the digital spaces where they interact.

Most Proud Boys propaganda is implicitly racist and antisemitic, but where the accelerationist faction marks a departure is in their willingness to express it openly, Loadenthal said.

“I would portray the Proud Boys as antisemitic, racist bigots,” he said. “They would not see themselves as such. But it’s undeniable when they start sharing content that is explicitly racist and antisemitic. You see more and more of that — some call it ‘siege culture’ or accelerationist aesthetic — in the mainstream versions of the Proud Boys, the nationalist version of the far right. Those groups want to see themselves as nationalist. They’re interacting more with people who would identity as fascist or eco-fascist. Those walls used to be higher. They’re not higher anymore.”

Beyond the Proud Boys, Loadenthal said the broader accelerationist network appears to be poised for a “second renaissance,” following a period of reshuffling after the law enforcement disruption campaign that took place from 2017 to 2020.

“We have observed in recent history, specifically the period after the January 2021 assault at the US Capitol building the expanded recruitment by accelerationist groups such as The Base and Atomwaffen, and individuals involved in those groups documenting their presence throughout the United States and Western Europe,” Loadenthal said.

The Base and Atomwaffen jointly released a 90-second propaganda video depicting a “winter survival training” on their respective Telegram channels in late January, Loadenthal said. The text accompanying the video describes the two groups as “brothers in arms” and invites viewers to “Join us in the struggle to Save Our Race.”

“Someone in Atomwaffen and someone in The Base got together and made a video,” Loadenthal said. “It could be two people, it could be four people, it could be more. What it shows is some degree of coordination.”

Another indicator of a rise in accelerationism within the Proud Boys is content shared on Telegram that glorifies Kaczynski — no less than nine times on the Great Basin channel since the beginning of December 2021. Last week, the Great Basin chapter shared a TikTok video that explicitly traces a radicalization path from enthusiasm for Donald Trump to support for terrorism. It begins with footage of Trump dancing to “YMCA” by the Village People, captioned, “My political beliefs in 2016,” and then turns to static, before a new frame shows Kaczynski being led away in handcuffs, with the caption, “My ‘political’ beliefs in 2021.”

Admiration for Kaczynski on the far right extends beyond the Proud Boys. Ryan Sanchez, a neo-Nazi from southern California who is affiliated with the Groyper movement, noted news that Kaczynski had been diagnosed with cancer with the hashtag #PrayForTed on his Telegram channel. Sanchez is currently organizing a “team” to accompany the truckers convoy that planned to begin in southern California on March 6 and travel to DC.

"They embrace the unmitigated nature of the attack, and it shows they don’t feel the need to go through representative democratic systems,” Loadenthal said, explaining the appeal Kaczynski holds for the far right. “They don’t feel the need to go through communities of affinity. They don’t care if they alienate people. They are apocalyptic, and they are not concerned with the optics.”

Samantha Kutner, who has extensively interviewed members of the Proud Boys and is at work on a book about the group, said she is concerned about the potential for an escalation of violence, citing the mobilization around trucker convoys and the upcoming mid-term elections. She said it’s impossible to predict when someone will decide to carry out an act of violence, or whether it will be a member of the Proud Boys or someone who holds no organization affiliation.

“There are incidents like in 2018 during the mid-terms with the MAGA bomber where you can see how Trump’s rhetoric acts as a mobilizing force,” she said. “There’s no consideration of these disastrous effects.

“My fear is that he’s going to incite further violence and there will be, if not the Proud Boys, other of his followers who act on it,” Kutner continued. “Individuals who commit violence might be identified as MAGA, but they might not have any affiliation. The likelihood of violence based on past precedent and Trump’s rhetoric right now is incredibly high.”

https://www.rawstory.com/accelerationist-proud-boys-2656637219/

[Rick Plant]

The radical right is getting more radical each day. Far right wing extremist Kansas candidate for Governor Kandiss Taylor has a slogan "Jesus Guns Babies”. Once again, the radical right is advocating for more violence with guns. The right has no issues except this nonsense. Guns don't put food on the table or get you better healthcare.     

[Rick Plant]

Never forget

[Rick Plant]

'Embrace the hate': Accelerationism has been a part of the Proud Boys all along



When Proud Boys from the Maryland-DC chapter showed up at the anti-vaccine Defeat the Mandates rally in Washington, DC last month, about half of the dozen-plus members wore skull masks, an aesthetic associated more with accelerationist terror groups like Atomwaffen and The Base than the street brawler network that asserted itself as shock troops for the MAGA movement.

This is installment three in a three-part series on accelerationism in the Proud Boy movement.

You can read part one: https://www.rawstory.com/accelerationist-proud-boys/

and part two here: https://www.rawstory.com/accelerationist-proud-boys-2656637219/

Two of the men wearing skull masks at the anti-vax rally had heckled antifascist counter-protesters on the sidelines of a march held by the avowedly fascist Patriot Front two days earlier. One of the men wore a helmet with a sticker depicting American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell and the slogan “White lives matter.” These were overtly white nationalist signals distinctly at odds with the Proud Boys' claim to be a civic nationalist organization that welcomes men of all races.

In truth, since the Proud Boys were founded in 2016, only a thin membrane has separated rank-and-file members from hardcore neo-Nazis, providing a degree of plausible deniability while also maintaining enough elasticity to draw together a broad coalition of far-right extremists. But accelerationism — a posture that advocates hastening societal collapse — has become increasingly prominent among the Proud Boys’ membership.

A video posted on the Maryland-DC Telegram channel two days before the chapter’s appearance at the anti-vax rally dispenses with the filters that typically camouflage Proud Boys messaging. The video features images of Adolf Hitler and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet along with images of the World Trade Center attack juxtaposed with photos of prominent Jews like Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The caption under the video openly declares, “Hate has built our nation.” Building through a tirade against public education and “celebrities, rappers and false gods,” it concludes, “We hate that the clock has begun for the [New World Order], and covid is just the beginning. Embrace the hate.”

Alongside Maryland-DC, the Telegram channels for the Mid-Missouri and Great Basin chapters are rife with the endorsements of white power ideology and antisemitism.

Samantha Kutner, who has interviewed numerous Proud Boys and is writing a book about the organization, said it doesn’t surprise her to hear “there are overtly neo-Nazi chapters,” but the national leadership would likely brush aside questions about such transgressions through a strategy of “deny, disavow, deny, disavow.”

Experts say the tension between a kind of inclusive patriotism that claims skin color is irrelevant and ethno-nationalism has been baked into the Proud Boys’ identity since the beginning. The Southern Poverty Law Center has described founder Gavin McInnes as playing “a duplicitous rhetorical game: claiming to reject white nationalism while espousing a laundered version of popular white nationalist tropes,” while noting that McInnes “has contributed to such hate sites as VDARE.com and American Renaissance, which publish the work of white supremacists and so-called race realists.”

A Jan. 28 post on the Mid-Missouri Proud Boys channel that was forwarded by the Maryland-DC chapter transparently displays the laundering. The Mid-Missouri chapter forwarded a post from White Lives Matter USA that promotes natalism, which read, “Love the Mothers. Make White Babies.” The Mid-Missouri chapter subtly tweaked the message by incorporating one of the Proud Boys’ doctrinal principles and substituting the word “Western” in place of “white”: “Venerate the housewife. Have Western babies.”

Another post from the Mid-Missouri chapter on Jan. 19 chillingly expresses opposition to mixed-race relationships while nostalgically suggesting the Allied forces should have appeased Adolf Hitler during World War II. It features a photo of a white woman standing beside a Black woman juxtaposed with a video depicting a white man looking at his cell phone and addressing the camera. “I just have a question,” he says. “I wonder if this image alone was enough, if shown to your great grandfather in a foxhole at the Battle of the Bulge to convince him: Maybe you should have at least heard the other side out.”

Experts say that accelerationism exists more on a continuum than as a distinct offshoot of the Proud Boys’ more mainstream conservative tendencies. Matthew Kriner, the managing director of the Accelerationism Research Consortium, told Raw Story that the Proud Boys as a whole are “mobilized around broader grievance narratives that are accelerationist in nature,” even if not every individual member is necessarily motivated by a desire for accelerationist violence.

But the Great Basin, Maryland-DC and Mid-Missouri chapters, which frequently share each other’s content, have self-consciously embraced accelerationism.

A Feb. 5 post by the Great Basin chapter most clearly articulates the underlying philosophy, using homophobic language.

“Stop looking back at 2019 with rose-tinted glasses,” the post reads. “Everything has been gay for a long time. The only way forward is with three feet on the gas pedal. Accelerate the world; decelerate your tribe.”

A screengrab of an anonymous post on 4chan that was circulated on Telegram on Feb. 2 by Maryland-DC and forwarded by Great Basin and Mid-Missouri appears to apply the concept to the trucker convoys that are currently crippling commerce in Canada. Also deploying homophobic language to imply inferiority on the part of their enemies, the author writes, “The honking is so incredibly effective at causing accelerated menticide in normalfags, it is tantamount to a miracle. There is no need to boil the frog or slow roll the honkening [sic]. These people have no principles or convections [sic], they will not fight for anything because they stand for nothing. Honking is literally the ACCELERATE meme applied in real-time. They are breaking down so fast that the narrative writers don’t know what to do.”

The tension between the classical liberal position that the Proud Boys attempt to project to outsiders and unrepentant ethno-nationalism continues to play out. In a post last November, the Cape Fear chapter in southeastern North Carolina articulated an exceptionalist view of the United States as uniquely color-blind.

“There is no ‘American race,’" the chapter leaders wrote on Telegram. “Instead, America is an idea. This idea has been enshrined in our constitution. Anyone who was born here or comes to this country legally and believes in our constitution can be American."

The Northern Nevada Proud Boys (now known as Great Basin) rebuked the Cape Fear chapter, responding on their channel with a position almost indistinguishable from Patriot Front.

“While we love you, Cape Fear, you guys are so unbelievably wrong," they wrote. "We are not an idea. We are a people. Our ancestors fought and died to secure a nation for US. NOT FOREIGNERS.” The post concluded: “Get your head out of your *ss and actually take pride in your heritage.”

Inextricably entwined with questions about white power ideology and accelerationism in the Proud Boys is internal controversy over the leadership of Enrique Tarrio. The Great Basin, Mid-Missouri and Maryland-DC chapters all posted mocking memes depicting Tarrio leaving jail after completing a prison sentence in January. Tarrio is a Cuban-American man who describes his skin color as “brown” and who by some accounts stepped down as chairman of the Proud Boys after completing a prison sentence last month.

“We disavow and have zero association with Enrique Tarrio,” the Mid-Missouri chapter posted. “He is not to be trusted.”

The Maryland-DC chapter derided Tarrio with the photo of him leaving jail modified that included a yellow arrow pointing towards an accordion folder stuffed with documents that reads, “Lists of new grifts and ways to f**k over Proudboys.”

The post from the Great Basin chapter was equally derisive: “I really do wonder why anyone thought appointing this embarrassment as chairman of anything was a good idea.”

Kriner noted that Tarrio’s leadership has always been challenged, and the accelerationist faction has vied for primacy since the beginning of the organization.

“Throughout the history of the Proud Boys, one of the dissenting voices was also the faction leader of the accelerationist tendency,” Kriner said. “That was Kyle Chapman, the leader of the Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knight, which was both the hyper-violent accelerationist faction and paramilitary faction.”

The Proud Boys’ history of overlap with accelerationist neo-fascists also includes the brief leadership of Jason Van Dyke, a lawyer who briefly led the organization after founder Gavin McInnes stepped down in 2018 and before Tarrio became chairman. After leading the Proud Boys, Van Dyke reportedly attempted to join The Base but was rejected because he was considered a “liability.”

Kutner said that regardless of his current status in the Proud Boys, Tarrio has utility for the group, noting that when she’s talked to him he has projected “a laissez faire approach” that provides plausible deniability and allows leaders to deploy a “no true Scotsman” argument to address almost any transgression.

“When an individual in this ‘rogue chapter’ commits a crime of violence or goes to a rally wearing a shirt saying ‘6 Million Wasn’t Enough,’ they can say, ‘Not one of our chapters. Rogue chapter. Not us.’” Kutner said. “Or, ‘He only made first degree. Not sure about him.’”

In the larger universe of the far right, Kriner said “groups like the Proud Boys" act "as a bridge between overtly extremist violence and obscure justified violence.”

There may be less contradiction between the mainstream faction of the Proud Boys that built inroads with the GOP in late 2020 and provided the backbone for the Jan. 6 attack, and accelerationist faction that is flirting with terrorism, Kutner said.

When she interviewed Tarrio before he served his prison sentence, Kutner said he told her that he would give every journalist a different story about his plans with regard to whether he intended to relinquish his role as national chairman.

“That serves the accelerationist function of eroding trust in the media,” Kutner said. Whether he is still the chairman or not might be beside the point.

“I would say that he’s incredibly valuable to the group at a national level because of the optics,” Kutner said. “Whether or not he remains the chairman or not, he is seeking political legitimacy by encouraging people from every chapter to run for office.” She added that running Proud Boys for office “serves an anti-establishment function” that aligns with former White House strategist Steve Bannon’s goal to achieve the “deconstruction of the administrative state."

"Whether it’s military training camps similar to The Base that are trying to hasten the collapse of society or using the remnants of the GOP to try to destroy the Republican Party from the inside, it’s the same agenda,” Kutner said.

Kutner said the Proud Boys can best be understood as “a radicalization vector,” noting that not every member will harbor explicitly neo-Nazi views.

“There are narratives that concern me,” Kutner said, “like Tarrio stating, ‘I used to be for God, family and country; now, I’m for God, family and tribe.’”

Kriner described the Proud Boys membership as a “tapestry” with a loose governance structure that “allows for a wide range of behaviors and viewpoints that can make it seem like people are at odds with each other.” Regardless, he said, “the goal is to move everyone towards a more antagonistic stance towards the liberal, democratic state.”

And the crisis in liberalism is ultimately the reason accelerationism is on the rise, he said.

“There is a growing dissatisfaction with the liberal democratic order among many individuals of many different ideological views,” Kriner said. “The unchecked proliferation of accelerationist narratives in spaces like Telegram and previously on the mainstream social-media platforms has allowed those views to take hold, where in the past they would have been more stymied by normal barriers to communication. The ease of communication of those views makes it more likely people will come across them.”

https://www.rawstory.com/accelerationism-proud-boys/

[Rick Plant]

"I have signed an Executive Order to deny Russia the chance to profit from its blatant violations of international law. We are continuing to closely consult with Allies and partners, including Ukraine, on next steps." - President Joe Biden

[Rick Plant]

White Supremacy and White nationalism are the members and values of MAGA.   

Arizona Republicans are flocking to attend white nationalist Nick Fuentes’ far-right conference



Some of the leading MAGA voices in Arizona are giving political cover to far-right extremism by supporting the America First Political Action Conference organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

The Daily Beast explained the conference "derives its name from a merger of Fuentes’ America First podcast and the event it is designed to siphon crowds from: the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)."

The CPAC conference has been a mainstay in GOP politics for decades, but Fuentes' counter-programming conference has been embraced by top Arizona Republicans, who went all-in on Trump's "big lie" of election fraud with the widely-panned Cyber Ninjas' "audit" of the vote in Maricopa County.

"Arizona’s Rep. Paul Gosar opened for Fuentes at last year’s AFPAC conference and has continued to root for the young white nationalist. Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers, popular with Trump and other 2020 election deniers nationwide, has also sung Fuentes’ praises online. Both Arizona politicians are slated to appear at AFPAC this weekend, in addition to former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio and Iowa Rep. Steve King, both of whom hold notoriety for harboring unusually cruel anti-immigrant attitudes. Trump-endorsed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake was advertised as a speaker on one iteration of the event’s flier, though she has since denied that she plans to attend," The Beast reported

.Writing for The Beast, domestic extremism researcher Jared Hold noted that Fuentes was once considered politically toxic.

"There was a period in time where associating with Fuentes and his posse’s naked extremism and hate was a mark of death on conservative political figures’ mainstream careers, and rightfully so. Though Fuentes often denies considering himself a white nationalist, he espouses the ideology verbatim in public settings often and specifically. Fuentes also regularly proclaims anti-semitic beliefs; he has engaged in Holocaust denialism and once denounced far-right commentator Matt Walsh as a 'shabbos goy race traitor' because Walsh, who is white, works for an outlet run by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish," Holt reported. "Fuentes was a leading figure in 2020’s 'Stop the Steal' election-denial movement and has been resultantly subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot. At last year’s AFPAC, Fuentes praised the deadly attack and told the crowd at his conference that 'we need a little bit more of that energy in the future.'”

The month following Trump's 2020 defeat to Joe Biden, Fuentes led a crowd at a "Stop the Steal" rally in booing Shapiro.

"There has been an apparent lack of interest in condemning or correcting those who have effectively sanitized Fuentes to a portion of the post-Capitol riot conservative landscape. After attending last year’s AFPAC conference, Gosar appeared on a panel at CPAC the next morning without fuss from CPAC organizers or other conference speakers. This indifference has enabled Fuentes to expand his tent to include more far-right figures," The Beast reported. "This year’s conference will also host an expanded rogues gallery of extremist movement figures and disgraced far-right media personalities. Gavin McInnes, the Canadian media figure who founded the violent Proud Boys group, is new to this year’s roster.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-america-first-political-action-conference-is-courting-republicans-towards-extremism?ref=scroll