Pride Goeth Before the Fall: 2 Proud Boys Get Stiff Sentences for their Role in NYC Brawl.

John Kinsman and Maxwell Hare effed around and found out.

MANHATTAN – While likening their crime to the political violence from Nazis and Fascists in the 1930s and 1940s, a judge sentenced Proud Boys to four years for their role in a fight with antifa just over a year ago outside the Manhattan Republican Club where Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes was speaking. 

Maxwell Hare and John Kinsman were convicted over the summer of attempted gang assault, attempted assault, and riot and Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Mark Dwyer cited the historical reference to explain why it was important to give the two prison time. “I know enough about history to know about what happened in Europe in the 1930s when political street brawls were allowed to go ahead without any type of check from the criminal justice system,” he said. They could have been sentenced to 15 years.

On Oct. 12, 2018, McInnes, a co-founder of Vice magazine, appeared at the club while outside people had gathered to protest his appearance with chants such as “No Nazis, no KKK, no fascist USA”. Things had been particularly tense from the outset as the night before the club was vandalized as windows were broken and antifascist symbols were sprayed on the door. McInnes who during his speech wielded a plastic sword, staged a re-enactment of the 1960 murder of a Japanese socialist leader by a teenage ultranationalist. Meanwhile, things escalated into a brawl as 10 members and associates of the Proud Boys and another fascist group called the 211 Bootboys attacked the antifascist crowd. The Proud Boys would later claim self defense, showing a video where one of the antifascists threw a bottle at them, seemingly suggesting they initiated the fight, but other footage shows the Proud Boys actually seeking them out and then attacking, the bottle thrown to ward them off.

The incident sparked a massive pushback against the Proud Boys that has been so intense McInnes denied he was their leader and resigned from the group, although he still associates with them and speaks at their events. Proud Boy members have also seen themselves becoming such pariahs in their communities. One Pennsylvania town closed one of their fire departments when they refused to fire one of their members who was briefly an associate, while the police department in East Hampton, Connecticut has come under fire for refusing to discipline a police officer who was a dues-paying member of the group the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a hate group. Meanwhile, in addition to the ten that were arrested and since convicted for their roles in the Manhatthan fight, Proud Boys along with their associates in another group called Patriot Prayer are facing charges stemming from a May Day brawl they reportedly initiated outside a cidery frequented by antifa.

Hare and Kinsman are still finding support from Proud Boys and their supporters, who as they have been banned from much of mainstream social media have taken to outlets like Telegram to vent their frustration at the verdict. Fascist writer Milo Yiannopoulous who has been an associate of the Proud Boys since their inception, spoke of “getting even” in response to the sentencing, but it was unclear who he was suggesting should be targeted. Meanwhile, commentator Ann Coulter took to Twitter to suggest the country should “split up” because “Republicans cannot get fair-play Anglo-Saxon Law in liberal jurisdictions.” Her Tweet linked to a video by Gavin McInnes, who despite publicly leaving the group wears a Proud Boy polo shirt and among other things, rants about Judge Dwyer’s position to incarcerate Hare and Kinsman out of concern for political violence similar to what was seen in Europe. “The judge said, basically called me Hitler, and said he’s sentencing these guys because it reminds him of 1930s Europe, political brawls in 1930s Europe,” he said. “He’s saying he has to sentence these guys to prevent World War 3. That’s fucking insane!” In July however, while speaking at a Proud Boys-sponsored rally in Washington, DC, McInnes himself likened Proud Boys fighting antifascists to Nazi soldiers in World War II killing Soviet troops.

FOUR YEARS IN PRISON FOR DEFENDING CONSERVATIVES FROM ANTIFA THUGS.

Republicans cannot get fair-play Anglo-Saxon Law in liberal jurisdictions. The country needs to split up.https://t.co/g90xYderj6

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) October 22, 2019

Just sayin', bruh. pic.twitter.com/k9kLK5HJl1

— Daryle Lamont Jenkins (@DLamontJenkins) October 22, 2019

Kinsman and Hare received the harshest sentence of any of the fascists arrested related to the fight, and despite the demands of Proud Boys and their associates, no antifascist has been similarly charged.