Emma speaks with Andy Campbell, senior editor and reporter at the Huffington Post, to discuss his recent book We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism. First, Emma runs through updates on inflation, Boebert’s recount victory, another IDF murder of a young Palestinian girl, Peru’s political protests, and Elon dissolving the Twitter Trust and Safety Council, before parsing through a recent Talking Points Memo leak of January 6th texts featuring all of the day’s main characters. Andy Campbell then joins as he dives right into the current moment of the Proud Boys’ political movement, as their leader Enrique Tarrio and others face a Seditious Conspiracy charge for January 6th, with numerous high-level members already pleading guilty and notifying their willingness to testify against their brothers. He also touches on how the group is grappling with the indictment, with founder Gavin McInnes returning to the forefront, before stepping back to examine the story of how McInnes’ middle-aged misogynists’ militia came to be, with McInnes getting pushed out of Vice Media by his cofounders in 2008 due to blatant bigotry, and resigning himself to a solo talk show where he could center himself and his reactionary views. Continuing with this story, Campbell walks through the role of Donald Trump’s 2016 candidacy in lighting a spark in McInnes, particularly as his community of like-minded men continued to grow, shifting his program from a simple talk show to a call-to-action for mediocre incels, pushing his audience to physically fight for Trump’s politics, to the point where violence or arrest remained a base requirement for leadership in his Proud Boys. Finishing up the history portion, Campbell and Emma walk through the continued evolution of the Proud Boys over the ladder half of Trump’s presidency, and its culmination on January 6th, before they shift to a broader discussion of the values the Proud Boys bring to the table, including their view of themselves as a hyper-masculine militaristic brotherhood, before parsing more specifically through how they tackle ingraining themselves in the US political system, winning low-level GOP candidacies and actual seats in government to help legitimize their efforts, while claiming “irony” any time their violence is confronted. Wrapping up, they discuss the future of far-right extremism and aggrievement in politics, and why they’re not likely to go away.

And in the Fun Half: Emma and the MR crew discuss what Taibbi’s recent work can teach us about other Billionaire playthings like Glenn Greenwald, and parse through his claim that being a bigot is actually all the rage with kids these days. They also walk through Judge Janine Pirro’s recent endorsement of Kyrsten Sinema, and wrap up with Candace Owens’ discrimination incrimination, plus, your calls and IMs!

Check out Andy's book here: https://www.hachettebooks.com/titles/andy-b-campbell/we-are-proud-boys/9780306827464/

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