Proud Boys, Proud Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do…

This past week, this group has seen its efforts to play the victim in their NYC brawl two months ago fall apart thanks to new video, and some announcement that they had a “truce” with an antifa group get removed from their site right after that antifa group said it was BS. Only a matter of time before this Proud Boys crap is done.

It has been a rough few months for the Proud Boys, the neo-Fascist group founded in 2016 that has promoted and engaged in political violence over the past two years. Despite that history, it wasn’t until last October when after a brawl outside the Metropolitan Republican Club just before an appearance there by Proud Boy founder Gavin McInnes, that they saw some sort of comeuppance with the arrest of several of their members for their roles in the fight. In the weeks that followed, the group suddenly became a public pariah, and their fortunes started to turn with the loss of their online funding capabilities, as well as the removal of their accounts on several social networking outlets. This month, McInnes lost his television show on Mark Levin’s CRTV when it merged with Glenn Beck’s media outlet to form Blaze TV. That was after McInnes, who has been repeatedly quoted promoting violence, once as “a really effective way to solve problems”, and at his Republican Club appearance was mocking the stabbing death of a Japanese Socialist leader in 1961, announced that he was “officially disassociating” from the group he founded. He would not denounce them, however, even saying he was making the move reluctantly.

“I’m told by my legal team and law enforcement that this gesture could help alleviate their sentencing,” McInnes said, referring to the Proud Boy members arrested in the Republican Club attack. “Fine. At the very least, this will show jurors they are not dealing with a gang and there is no head of operations. We are not an extremist group and we do not have ties with white nationalists.”

Unfortunately for McInnes, potential jurors were given some evidence that would suggest the Proud Boys are more than just some fraternal organization that he attempts to paint them as, are indeed an extremist group and the explanation of their actions that night by McInnes being contradicted.

Video of the incident released by police outside the Republican Club initially showed anti-fascist protesters throwing a water bottle at Proud Boys who looked as those they only engaged with them after that action, allowing McInnes to not only blame the provocation of violence on antifa, but to concoct a story that it was an antifa “ambush” targeting “two stragglers at the back” of a departing group of Proud Boys and that an ambusher took “one of their MAGA hats,” leading to a fight . New video however has been released from another angle, showing the Proud Boys approaching antifa with the intent of attacking them, and that the water bottle was thrown in defense against the oncoming mob.

THREAD: A new video contradicts claims by Gavin McInnes and others about what started the violence by his group, the Proud Boys, after his talk at the Metropolitan Republican Club in New York City on Oct. 12.

— Colin Moynihan (@ColinRMoynihan) December 23, 2018

There has not been any apparent response from McInnes or the Proud Boys regarding this new reveal, despite a quick prominence in discussions regarding the case in social media, including conspiracy theorists attempting to dismiss the new video. Some, like the Daily Stormer’s Andrew Anglin, chose not to care. “This whole concept of the ‘initiation of force’ being the deciding factor of who is to blame for any physical confrontation is the result of female values being promoted by Jewish legalism,” he wrote on his website. “Historically in America and across the rest of the Western world, up until relatively recently in fact, the justice system was much more concerned about justice, and the argument of ‘yeah, we punched those guys because they were stalking us on the street with clear intent to attack us’ would have been seen by a court as perfectly reasonable. If a fist fight where no one was seriously injured ever went to a court, which it pretty much never would.”

Besides the new video, there was another new development involving the Proud Boys that was seen as odd, not to mention insulting. On Dec. 17, an article appeared on their website that announced that the Proud Boys in Portland, Oregon have come to a truce with Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP). “Apparently, there have been meetings with SHARPs and Proud Boys in Portland where both sides are realizing anti-racists fighting anti-racists is a complete waste of time,” the article read. “We’re not even sure what the difference is between both groups.” The article was illustrated by a picture of a Black man wearing a black Fred Perry polo shirt with yellow piping – the colors worn by the Proud Boys – which was actually a photograph taken from the Fred Perry website, a curious stunt since the clothing company denounced the group as running afoul of their positions as a company, noting that the world tennis champion was the son of a Socialist Member of Parliament in the UK.

The response was swift. Using the hashtag #NoTruce, American S.H.A.R.P. posted a thread on Twitter saying that “(T)here is absolutely no truce between SHARP and Proud Boys or with anyone else that accepts or promotes Fascism. “

This is funny, there is absolutely no truce between SHARP and Proud Boys or with anyone else that accepts or promotes Fascism. We will continue to defend our communities against all including PB’s that pose a threat to any oppressed group. There’s no truce https://t.co/abPxrBjuVK

— American S.H.A.R.P (@AmericanSHARP1) December 26, 2018

Just as quickly as it appeared, the article was removed from the Proud Boy website, although it still exists as a cache online. But it was too late as the posting became a conversation piece.

The next court dates for the Proud Boys arrested in the Republican Club brawl will be early in January. It remains to be seen how the new evidence impacts on the case.