Proud Boys celebrate this Japanese assassin as a hero — here’s why

The far-right in America has come to embrace a far-right extremist in Japan who was responsible for the country's last assassination.

On Sunday, Business Insider reminded readers of an incident when the Proud Boys clashed with anti-fascist activists to celebrate the assassination of a Japanese politician.

"The year was 2018 and the Proud Boys, an American paramilitary group founded by a Canadian, Gavin McInnes, were reenacting the 1960 killing of Inejirō Asanuma, the leader of Japan's Socialist Party. Asanuma's killer: Otoya Yamaguchi, an ultra-right teenager murdered the leftist politician with a sword on live television, stabbing him at a rally in Tokyo in a scene captured in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo," Business Insider reported.

McInnes called Yamaguchi a "great hero."

"Prior to the murder of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, himself a member of a conservative party and described as a nationalist, the assassination of Japan's leading socialist was the most infamous example of post-war political violence in the island nation," Business Insider reported.

"At the time, the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower joined China and the Soviet Union in denouncing the killing, labeling it 'senseless' and 'deplorable.' Few, whatever their take on socialism or communism, would have thought to openly defend the legitimacy of murder as political praxis. A contemporary report from The Guardian noted American fears that the killing would indeed make the deceased target a martyr, boosting his brand of working-class politics. But in the decades since, it is Yamaguchi, not his victim, who has become both a legend and a meme, with some members of the American far-right portraying his murder of an unarmed man as an act of heroism."

The Proud Boys were invited to New York by the Metropolitan Republican Club.

"It's a theme you'll find in the dark corners of the far-right internet: that Yamaguchi's violence was as righteous as it was stylish," Business Insider reported. "In a forum for supporters of former President Donald Trump, The Donald, a popular post marked the October 12 anniversary of Asanuma's murder as 'Otoya Yamaguchi day,' receiving hundreds of comments commemorating the assassination."

The report noted Kyle Rittenhouse was compared favorably to Yamaguchi on far-right social media.

"The cult of personality has also been embraced by those who imagine themselves the intellectual titans of the "Make America Great Again" movement," Business Insider reported. "Matt Braynard, who worked on Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and last year organized a rally for January 6 defendants, was so enamored with Yamaguchi that he started a magazine and named it after him: 'Otoya: A Literary Journal of the New Nationalism.'"

The report noted that people wore "Yamaguchi did nothing wrong" T-shirts at a 2019 conference held at the Trump National Doral Golf Club.

Read the full report here.