The unprecedented phenomenon that was experienced last Wednesday, January 6 in the United States when a group of supporters of President Donald Trump burst into the Capitol and clashed with police inside the iconic building, which is home to the ‘US Legislature, put back on the map the far-right groups who were also in the front line during the assault on the Capitol.
(You may be interested in: Second political trial against Trump: what is defined this Wednesday?)
Among the assailants were members of different groups and organizations associated with the far right, conspiracy theories and nationalist movements, as well as individuals denying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.
Who are the Proud guys?
When outgoing President Donald Trump was asked to condemn white supremacy groups during a presidential debate, the president referred to the Proud guys and he only asked them to “take a step back and wait,” which provoked great controversy which compelled him to rectify soon after.
As reported by the BBC portal, Proud guys was founded in 2016 by Canadian-British right-wing activist Gavin McInnes, Proud guys is a far-right, anti-immigrant, men-only group with a history of street violence against its left-wing opponents.
The name of the group is a reference to a song from the musical version of the Disney movie Aladdin. Members often wear Fred Perry’s black and yellow powders along with red “Make America Great Again” hats.
(Also: EE. UU., On alert to possible armed protests by ‘trumpists’)
Hundreds of Trump-sympathized protesters gathered in Washington on Wednesday.
Spencer Platt. Getty Images / AFP
They are not exclusively white, but have become famous for their violent political clashes.
the Proud guys and affiliated groups have clashed in Antifa (short for “anti-fascist”, flexible affiliation of mostly far-left activists, according to BBC reports) in a series of violent street demonstrations over the past two years, most notably in Oregon , Washington and New York. Two members were jailed last year for beating antifa activists in New York.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube have banned the group on their platforms, and both its members and content have largely migrated to less popular networks.
(See: Why will Trump be accused of inciting insurrection?)
What is QAnon?
The QAnon conspiracy movement, now banned on major digital platforms, was born in 2017 in the United States among supporters of Donald Trump, who denounce the existence of an alleged “elite” made up of Satan-worshiping pedophiles. Some of his followers were present at the invasion of the Capitol on 6 January.
In 2016, the Pizzagate case, a rumor that a Washington pizzeria was being used as a hiding place by a pedophile Democratic elite, had a big impact on conspiracy circles and contributed to the birth of the “theory ”
QAnon the following year.
‘Q’ is one of the users who started sharing the basics of this theory. On the sign holding the protester it says ‘Q sent me’.
It is named after a mysterious official called Q, who would fight to overthrow a “deep state”, an organization of senior government officials involved in pedophile networks seeking to establish a “new world order”. And only U.S. President Donald Trump would be able to thwart that plan.
On social media, QAnon “is a sponge for conspiracy theories. Everything is acceptable, from anti-Semitic mythologies, 5G, masks, science fiction …”, and the different theories feed off each other, according to Tristan Mendès France, who teaches digital cultures at the University of Paris.
QAnon is considered since 2019 as a potential terrorist threat in the United States.
Trump supporters storming the US Capitol. UU.
Donald Trump has always refused to explicitly condemn the conspiracy movement. One of its activists, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a clear supporter of
QAnon, won a seat in the U.S. Congress on November 3, 2020. “+ Q + is a patriot,” he estimated in 2017.
Facebook claims it has taken strong action against the QAnon conspiracy movements, eliminating accounts and investing in an information verification program. Twitter announced Monday that it had “permanently suspended” 70,000 accounts affiliated with the movement to prevent them from using the social network for violent purposes.
The announcement came after the outgoing president’s account was permanently suspended on charges of inciting violence for asking his supporters to march on the Capitol. Tristan Mendès France explains that, deprived of Facebook and Twitter, QAnon supporters are rushing towards alternative networks such as Parler, Gab or Telegram. “The problem is that the shift to these radical platforms exposes the ‘softer’ members of the movement to greater radicalization.“, Explain.
ELTIEMPO.COM
* With THE NATION (GDA) and AFP
Find also in International:
-Trump says his speech before the capture at the Capitol was appropriate
-The United States executes the first woman in nearly seven decades
-Pence refuses to invoke Amendment 25 to remove Trump from office
-Ii. UU. It will require negative covid test to travelers arriving by plane