Speaking to MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Monday, reporter Brandy Zadrozny described her team's efforts in following white supremacists, militia groups and other extremists for the year after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
One of the things that she noticed is that people angry about Jan. 6 went from obsessing over Trump's "Big Lie" to working on culture war issues like, "critical race theory."
Zadrozny mentioned Denise Aguilar, a vocal California vaccine conspiracy theorist and founder of a survivalist group who ultimately became radicalized by Donald Trump to attack the U.S. Capitol.
"I have been reporting on the anti-vaccination movement for about a decade, so I've known Denise Aguilar, who is an activist out of California, for years now," said Zadrozny. "She's always been an anti-vaxxer for the last -- when California was putting in place laws to get rid of school exemptions, she was very vocal, and you could see her progression through 2020. A person who was an anti-vaxxer became a sort of Proud Boy's friend. She was detained at the California state capitol, and then she ended up going to the Capitol on Jan. 6. She spoke at a Health Freedom stage and then, according to her own selfie, she was at the Capitol, and she stormed -- she said, 'we stormed the Capitol.' She said she was sprayed with bear mace. She came home, and she started an all-women's militia."
Aguilar is now posting photos of herself with what appears to be her co-militia mates holding very large weapons. Her Telegram channel has become "just a spiral down into extremism, and so we watched this happen in real-time," said Zadrozny.
She told Zadrozny that their efforts are all about local politics now and they're not focusing on national politics.
Watch the full report below:
From Anti-vaxxer to a women's militiawww.youtube.com
