The Boogaloo Bois Prepare for Civil War

[Celerity]

As the FBI warns of violence, anti-government extremists are ready to get in on the chaos.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/boogaloo-prepare-civil-war/617683/



In the menagerie of right-wing populist groups, the boogaloo bois stand out for their fashion, for their great love of memes, and, to put it plainly, for the incoherence of their ideology. Which is saying a lot, considering that the riot at the Capitol last Wednesday featured partisans of the long-gone country of South Vietnam, Falun Gong adherents, end-times Christians, neo-Nazis, QAnon believers, a handful of Orthodox Jews, and Daniel Boone impersonators. The boogaloos weren’t a huge presence in that mob. But according to federal officials, the attack on the Capitol has galvanized them and could inspire boogaloo violence in D.C. and around the country between now and Inauguration Day. The FBI warned earlier that boogaloos could launch attacks in state capitols this Sunday, January 17. The boogaloos don’t appear interested in fighting for Donald Trump—they tend to despise him, mostly because they think he panders to the police. But for the past year, boogaloo bois all over the United States have been cheering on the country’s breakdown, waiting for the moment when their nihilistic memes would come to life and the country would devolve into bloody chaos.

It’s hard to know how seriously to take the boogaloo threat. Some are likely just joking when they “shit-post” about shooting cops or “yeeting alphabet boys”—killing government law-enforcement agents. But others seem serious. They’ve already shown up heavily armed (and in their signature Hawaiian shirts) at protests and at state capitols. They’ve allegedly killed law-enforcement officers, talked about throwing Molotov cocktails at cops during the racial-justice protests this summer, and plotted to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. They say they want a total reset of society, even if they haven’t thought very hard about what, exactly, should come next. Who are the boogaloo bois? And why do they want to start a civil war? I’ve spent the past few months trying to figure that out. Let’s start with what boogaloo isn’t. It isn’t, mainly, a white-supremacist organization, though there are some white-supremacist boogaloo bois. It isn’t a collection of Trump supporters ready to fight for the president, like, say, the Proud Boys. And despite the various attacks—planned or carried out—against police officers and government officials, boogaloo also isn’t a militia in any traditional sense of the word. It isn’t even really a movement.

It’s more like an absurdist internet culture propagated by libertarian-leaning gun enthusiasts on 4chan—the anonymous, Wild West version of Reddit—that has somehow moved into the real world. It’s jargon and memes and jokes and a sometimes-serious desire to bring about a violent revolution to overthrow the U.S. government. Like nearly everything about boogaloo, the ideas and terminology are simultaneously ridiculous and terrifying. The term boogaloo, for example, can refer to the purveyors of this culture or to an event: a violent revolution some of them hope to hasten, dubbed Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo. The name itself is a take-off on a pervasive internet joke, an allusion to a 1980s dance movie, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. (Take a moment to pity historians, centuries from now, as they try to understand how the name of a dance-movie sequel turned into the name of a proposed nationwide insurrection.) JJ MacNab has studied anti-government extremist groups for more than 20 years. As a fellow with the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, she’s tracked the boogaloo bois online since last fall, when she saw an uptick in memes calling—in a jokey way—for a civil war. Some of the boogaloo bois, she told me, are “accelerationists,” meaning they’re looking for any provocation—be it proposed gun-control measures, Black Lives Matter protests, or the presidential inauguration—to spark a violent conflict.



Other boogalooers believe that the “boogaloo” will be brought to them by the opposing side, by measures like gun confiscation, or some other perceived overstepping of authority. Over the past two years, the terminology moved from 4chan to Facebook, where a few groups quickly grew to thousands of members. MacNab says she tries to identify what she calls the “social butterflies” of the online groups: young men who seem to intuitively understand what’s cool and funny to their peers, and what isn’t. Once she finds a few, she follows them from group to group, across the internet, as a way of accessing their world. The word boogaloo morphed into big igloo, which brought about a deluge of igloo imagery, and also into big luau, which is what prompted some boogaloo bois to wear Hawaiian shirts under their body armour. One boogaloo meme shows the “Don’t Tread on Me” Gadsden snake set against a turquoise-and-pink floral pattern above the words ALOHA FUCKFACE. If none of this makes much sense, that’s the point. “They really want to create their own in-world so the rest of us won’t get their jokes,” MacNab told me. “It’s tribal,” she added. “These are tribal markings: the shirts they wear, the jargon they speak, even the types of guns they like.”

snip

[ret5hd]

2. So, kinda the militia version of Church Of The SubGenius but stupider.

[Celerity]

5. who?

[LuckyCharms]

7. Oh jeez. Posted in the wrong thread. I'm sorry. I'll delete. n/t

[Celerity]

8. all good!! cheers

[LuckyCharms]

10. .

Thanks for letting me know...I meant to post that comment in one of the threads talking about that woman who was in the Capitol and seeking a pardon from Trump.

[Celerity]

13. both were my OP's, so you probably just saw my name and thought it was the other thread

[BGBD]

4. These guys are dangerous

sure....but I don't think they are "start a civil war" kind of dangerous. I don't think we are going to see anything like 1/6 again. Most of the people that were in that mob weren't Proud Boys, Boogaloos, 3%ers, Oath Keepers, or any other organized group. They were bank executives and insurance salesmen who lost their damn minds because Trump whipped them into a frenzy with lies and then told them to go do some treason. I also don't think that those "normies" are going to do it again. Most of them are probably sitting at home shitting their pants and looking in their rear view mirrors and crying anytime they see a dark Suburban in traffic.

I think those people realize they were pretty dumb and have severely injured their prospects because of it and aren't going to be up to doing it again. I think that goes for most of the people who felt the same way and watched on TV. They are probably pretty happy they aren't in the FBIs sights right now.

1/6 failed to accomplish a single goal that anyone there had and everyone there is much worse off for having done it. That's going to sour most peoples taste for fighting.

These groups will still be around, but they aren't going to have 50 or 60 thousand pawns to run interference for them while they try a coup.

On their own, however, they are still dangerous. I'm not really worried about another 1/6 type of attack, but I am pretty worried about the prospect of smaller attacks that will kill people. I expect them to go after soft targets like malls, synagogues/mosques/black churches, etc. These might be gun attacks or bombings.

We can avoid this though. We need to come down hard on the people responsible for 1/6. When you let fascists off easy it usually comes back to bite you later on. We also need to get proactive and go after these far right groups before they are able to cause mayhem. Use everything at our disposal like federal gun laws, racketeering, money laundering, terrorism laws, etc. Keep them on the run and unable to catch their breath long enough to hit back. We have taken down large criminal organizations before, these guys aren't fundamentally different.

[Celerity]

6. good analysis

[cwydro]

11. Well said.

[Sogo]

12. Good analysis.

[moondust]

9. White ethnostate.

~
A white ethnostate is a proposed type of state in which residence or citizenship would be limited to white people and would exclude those viewed as non-whites such as Black people, non-White Hispanics, Jewish people, Muslims etc. In the United States, the idea to create such states is advanced by white supremacist/nationalist and white separatist factions such as Ku Klux Klansmen, neo-Nazis, white power skinheads and the alt-right whether through claiming a certain part or the whole of the country to have a white majority.
~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_ethnostate

I've heard it suggested that that's what they want. Hitler had a lot of luck with that in largely homogeneous Germany, but the U.S. has always been a "melting pot" so I don't think it'll ever get very far here.

[Hortensis]

16. Not so much these guys, the bois, though not being all that interested

in what would come after they caused the collapse of society that's what they'd almost certainly find themselves in. Because authoritarian white power groups who outnumber them big time do want that. Some probably realize well enough who they're rolling with and not care, as long as they get to destroy.

[Klaralven]

15. So basically anarchists

[Hortensis]

17. Sounds like it. Once typical rabble for populist movements now

emboldened to "accelerate" the destruction. Sanders' movement only took down the Democrats in 2016, Trump went much farther, but they were unable to make it happen with him. Most of their populists remain fairly loyal to one or both, but it sounds like these hard-cores despised them both, just the best they had to join.