On Saturday, Proud Boys from around the country plan to rally in Portland, a city the hate group has torn through repeatedly since 2017.
One of the militia members who joined Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin, told Hatewatch that far-right propaganda praising the 17-year-old accused murderer is harmful and said that he was not part of a “well-regulated militia.”
Last week, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse was arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of two protesters and the maiming of a third on the night of Aug. 25 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Responses by local law enforcement and militia groups illustrate the disastrous assumptions that made this incident all but inevitable.
Ryan Balch, a 31-year-old Wisconsin man who joined Kyle Rittenhouse and a contingent of militia conducting armed patrols in Kenosha, used his social media accounts to link to a Nazi propaganda video, amplified white nationalist Richard Spencer, and uploaded symbols associated with the so-called boogaloo movement, Hatewatch determined.
In his 2018 book How Fascism Works, Jason Stanley details how the propagandistic cult of personality surrounding President Trump is reminiscent of fascist movements from history.