The Proud Boys are largely ignoring the indictment of former President Donald Trump as the far-right group shifts its focus to attacking the LBGTQ community, Vice News reported Monday.
Despite the group being central to the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021 – and a local branch reportedly being involved in a protest outside the Miami courthouse that Trump is expected to be arraigned at Tuesday – members have been quiet about Trump's latest troubles.
Vice’s Tess Owen writes that “Ever since the latest batch of criminal charges against the former president dropped, this time under the Espionage Act in a federal court in Florida, the public response from the Proud Boys has so far been a resounding ‘meh.’”
Owen’s report cites Telegram channels associated with Proud Boy chapters showing tepid interest in the 37-count indictment accusing Trump of mishandling sensitive classified documents.
The report notes that a Miami Proud Boy chapter called “Vice City” initially reposted a flier promoting a protest outside the courthouse for Tuesday, but that by Monday it was back to assailing Pride Month.
Proud Boy chapters in North Carolina and Tulsa, Oklahoma showed similar apathy in the former president’s legal troubles, according to the report.
The group’s apparent indifference to Trump’s indictment makes them outliers in the broader far-right movement, according to the report, which notes that since Friday many such groups have trafficked in incendiary rhetoric.
The report describes the relationship between the Proud Boys and Trump as complicated, noting the former president’s mention on a debate stage in 2020 that the group “stand back and stand by.”
Since then, several members – including group leaders – have been convicted of seditious conspiracy.
The New York Times reports that, minutes after Trump’s Jan. 6 remark, “members of the group were posting in private social media channels, calling the president’s comments ‘historic.’ In one channel dedicated to the Proud Boys on Telegram, a private messaging app, group members called the president’s comment a tacit endorsement of their violent tactics.”
But Owen notes that the group started to sour on Trump after he conceded the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
“Trump will go down as a total failure,” a Proud Boy member wrote in a Telegram channel after Biden’s inauguration.
