The Proud Boys may have seen their leaders sentenced to hard time, said Huffington Post reporter Andy Campbell on MSNBC Thursday, but they still hold a great deal of power in some corners of the Republican Party — and GOP leadership seems content for them to effectively be serving as a militant wing.
Former President Donald Trump threw the group into prominence in 2020 when he ordered the far-right group in a presidential debate to "stand back and stand by" — and they went on to be a strong presence at the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, for which their leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
"I think that point about, again, in 20th-century European politics, particular in other places of the world, it has been a not uncommon thing for parties, movements, and factions, particularly on the extreme right, to have a street-fighting force, a violent force, sometimes those are outright armed and murderous," said anchor Chris Hayes. "They have introduced a kind of form of those politics, which haven't really been quite there in American politics in a while. Obviously this is what, you know, various groups like the KKK were back in the 1920s. They were an armed part, a violent part of of a political faction."
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"Also, about these local leaders, you're writing that the Proud Boys made inroads with GOP since January 6th," Hayes continued. "Members have been running for minor elected offices across the country. Several have secured seats alongside the GOP elite. A Proud Boy in Sarasota County, Florida, for example, was elected last year to the county Republican Executive Committee, where he has the power to influence local politics, alongside fellow committee member Mike Flynn, Trump's one-time National Security Adviser. We've got news today, both Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy have said that their sentences are too long and, asked about considering pardons, definitely not ruling it out."
"What do you think that does?" Hayes asked. "What's the effect of that kind of language from non-Trump Republican leaders?"
"Well, look," said Campbell. "I mean, it shows that the Proud Boys and the violence that they've committed is still fully embraced by the GOP. This political violence isn't going away until the GOP calls its neo-fascist footsoldiers out of the street, right? And until they believe in elections, the next election is going to be under threat until the Republicans pull that out. And so, to have DeSantis saying that, the Proud Boys certainly believe that, and will throw their support behind them for it."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
Andy Campbell says Proud Boys are the GOP's "neo-fascist footsoldiers"www.youtube.com
