(thread)

On Thursday I wrote a long thread that like 4 people read (I don't blame the rest of you) about the spread of "boog" stuff from Nazi to militia/militia-styled and represents, and how the danger I see is the spread of accelerationism in the direction of MAGA. https://twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/status/1274397918838087681

As Emily says, this is an ongoing conversation in antifascist/Nazi-hunting space.

It's a frustrating one, because the mainstream media seized quickly on this catchphrase of "boogaloo movement," widely citing an expert who understands militias but is also v problematic otherwise.

Now, my main introduction to this particular expert, @jjmacnab, was her circulating a conspiracy theory about the KKK and BLM and Antifa sitting down to a mafia-style summit guarded by outlaw bikers, which is like, Iraq/Osama/WMD-level government intelligence wet dream fantasy.

Now, just as background on *my* field of expertise, I've spent my whole adult life working in economic-focused and later racial justice-focused intersectional direct action organizing, with a strong focus on 1) issue campaigns, 2) rapid response, and 3) emergent movement space.

I started organizing with a focus racial justice after Unite the Right in 2017, but didn't start doing specifically antifascist research until Nov 2018, starting with local Proud Boys and their friends, and also more and more online terror accelerationist Nazis in early 2019.

As Emily names, "boogaloo" civil war memes really started out in those spaces as a very specifically race war Nazi accelerationist hing.

I think this was around July 2019 (it may have been slightly earlier on 8chan, but that's when it started popping up on Telegram).

One thing worth pointing out explicitly is *why* this particular race war meme took off. It's named after "Breaking 2: Electric Boogaloo." It's important to point out that, as with earlier, much more obscure memes playing on the name, the fact that it's a sequel matters.

In the Nazi's case, this is about a reference to a redo-- a sequel to-- our last race war, which is how they view the US Civil War. It's also important to point out that it's a Black movie about Black folks practicing Black pop culture Nazis see as animalistic.

In the mouths of white supremacists, "Boogaloo" has an air to it of some of the nonsense "African" words that Kipling types liked to make up and that marked white imitation of a perceived "primitive" African-ness to Black people.

"J*gaboo" is a good example.

Its popularization happened, as best I can tell, as 8chan's demise (go team!) really secured Telegram as ground zero for online Nazi accelerationist culture.

Telegram was (and largely still is) the Wild West.

What is really seared in my memory from that time is the close association made between "proof" that Black people were inherently, animalistically violent, delivered in some of the most horrific, explicit online gore video I've ever seen, taken from African conflict spaces.

Because it didn't have the "cleanness" of gun murder, it was presented as "proof" that Black people are inherently impulsively, animalistically violent, and therefore easily-- inevitably-- manipulated into US race war by supposed shadowy Jewish cabals.

"Boogaloo" as a meme took off because it gestured not just at a 2nd bloody US race war, but to a race war theory about how Jews are manipulating US Black people into waging that war, & the best counter is to wake US white people up to that "reality" by accelerating with terror.

I differ here from Emily's read on boog as a meme in that I don't believe it was popularized w. either real or faked irony.

It was a tongue-in-cheek phrasing, but took off largely in explicitly Nazi spaces that didn't need to feign disingenuous irony to radicalize not-yet-Nazis.

Now, as Emily has pointed out, the idea of *some* sort of shit-hits-the-fan moment is very popular in mostly far-right (but not exclusively far right) circles like militias, preppers, and survivalists.

Also sometimes the mainstream: Y2K, ironic zombie stuff, nuclear holocaust.

There's also a bunch of apocalyptic thinking on the left about a tipping point shtf moment, but it tends to be more "spontaneous and glorious worker's rev, we'll write some newsletters & grow kale rn" thinking rather than "buy guns and go do paramilitary traiming on a compound."

There's a classic essay on American paranoid thought that's sort of like, yeah, this is kind of what we do, it's in the US's DNA, and I really believe that.

Our political discourse almost always revolves around expecting a SHTF moment.

What's changed is the impatience for it.

Again, my specialty and expertise is *not* in militia/militia-styled far right online culture, and to the extent I'm familiar with it, it's mostly through seeing some of them coordinating with local Proud Boys and the South Philly MAGAs that cozy up with the PB.

I do know the Telegram accelerationist terror Nazis and their views on militia, MAGA, and in particular the VA gun rally.

Most of those guys are Gen Z, millennials, and *some* younger Xers.

They tend to see militias, MAGA, & that rally as boomer, cringe, & largely beyond hope.

The major and glaring exception here is The Base, which positioned itself as a training operation for Nazi race war combatants, merging militia and online terror Nazi aesthetics.

They planned to target the VA rally, but that plan wasn't public and the Base is/was... complicated.

For the most, the Nazi Terrorgram crowd mostly pooh-poohed that idea that the VA gun rally folks could be radicalized into accelerationism. The few who said "well maybe tho" were pretty roundly mocked.

Even the Base's plan was just to get them confused & shooting at each other.

Now, we all know that memes are like viruses, they spread and evolve into different strains.

I definitely watch Nazis gun-focused boog Telegram spaces where the gun stuff was more important than the Nazi stuff to more militia-styled, less NS/acceleration-interested participants.

Listen, it doesn't surprise me at all that the more "boog" became accepted shorthand for SHTF race war, the more folks interested in SHTF prepping/training brought it into other far right militia-styled SHTF prep spaces without being like "oh btw it's specifically about race war"

I buy that theory because it's how language works, it jives with what I've seen, and also because the igloo/palm tree/Hawaiian shirt and also "soup boys" (vs. "Alphabet boys") stuff are not popular vocab/variations on boog stuff within Nazi Terrorgram.

I also buy that for many miltia/paramilitary/militia-styled boog guys, there's not necessarily even a recognition that "boog" started as an explicitly race war type thing.

I even buy that some miltia-styled boog guys may not consider themselves to be white supremacists.

Now, it's really important here to note that not thinking you're WS doesn't make you not WS.

They're in a broader movement full of explicit racism and engaging in aesthetics and mene culture rooted in both organized white supremacy and structural white supremacy.

Like, it doesn't really matter what is in my heart of hearts or what my new social club believes if I name it The Clan, call myself a Grand Dragon & we go marching around in white hoods burning crosses.

Even if I didn't know the history, that ignorance would BE white supremacy.

The boog is a deeply racist meme whether its embracers know it or not.

Given that the militia-styled "boogaloo movement" guys are *also* embracing the aesthetics of a far right movement that's for the most part VERY comfortable with white supremacists...

...they're clearly very comfortable being at least symbolically and culturally connected to organized white supremacist extremism.

That makes them white supremacist, regardless of their personal reasons for assuming the name/aesthetic.

We live in a deeply white supremacist country that is armed to the teeth, so the fact that a bunch of angry white guys who like guns have some cultural overlap with organized white supremacist culture isn't exactly a breakthrough headline.

MAGA does the same shit.

It's not even a headline that they're paranoid about a SHTF moment, because that's pretty much MAGA's deal, too, and also just, you know, kind of one of the defining features of modern United States political discourse.

Where *I* see something new and cause for serious alarm isn't that yet another bit of gross coded racist language/aesthetic has drifted over from far right extremists to MAGA-adjacent guys, but that the *strategy attached to it* seems to have drifted, too.

Guys like Carrillo aren't taking the MAGA approach and saying "oh the boog might happen, better vote for Trump and build a magic wall to prevent it and also stockpile canned goods just in case."

They aren't even taking what I generally understand to be the militia movement's general public-facing stance on boog and SHTF prophecy, which is "the boog is imminent, we're not happy about it but we must prepare for this grim inevitability"

I don't doubt that there's an internal rarin'-to-go-ness in many militia and militia-influenced spaces, and also outright interest in accelerationist provocation to the point of trying to foment civil war (see: the Bundys, McVeigh).

What's always been striking to me about militia circles, however, is their discipline about public-facing statements of purpose that frame their existence as a bulwark against government overstep, not preparatory forces to wage civil war.

I would assume part or most of that is likely just being savvy enough to know that the moment they step out of the Constitutional language permitting miltias and into the realm of threatening to start shit, the feds are likely to appear at their door, but it's still notable.

What sets off alarm bells in my head seeing militia-styled boog bois going out trying to escalate BLM situations and openly suggesting that they *want* to get the boog underway.

These guys aren't just borrowing an accelerationist meme, they're openly spouting accelerationism.

Accelerationism (like militia formation) isn't an ideology, it's a strategy, a strategy of offense.

It's a strategy that online terror Nazis have eagerly and openly espoused/attempted/advertised, but the rest of the far right have at least publicly pretended to eschew it.

As Carrillo and other "boogaloo movement" plotters have demonstrated, these guys haven't just absorbed a meme from the terror Nazis.

They've enthusiastically absorbed the underlying strategy that terror Nazis have tried used it to advance: accelerationism.

More than that, they've absorbed and accepted not just Nazis' strategic and rhetoric approach to the boog (accelerationism) but Nazis' favored tactics to advance that strategy: explicit public promotion, acts of terror, provocation, and escalation of existing tensions/conflict.

At this point, the "boogaloo movement" guys definitely are emergent (ie relatively new, organic, uncoordinated, and suddenly--appearing) movement.

I'm not usually a "blame MSM" type, but here I do think media coverage really had a lot to do with coalescing/cementing it as such.

The "boogaloo movement" stuff borrows heavily from terror Nazi memes (the boog), strategy (accelerationism), and tactics (terror/provocation).

It's still VERY distinct from terror Nazi boogaloo movement stuff, which is why "boogaloo movement" was a misleading generalization.

At this point, though, the media has pretty well-cemented the militia-styled strain as "boogaloo movement," and given them that as an identity to rally behind.

It was intended as a descriptor, not a prophecy, but it seems to have become self-fulfilling either way.

So, from where I sit, the militia-styled "boogaloo movement" seems to have become a pretty distinct, accelerationist and terror-friendly emergent movement within the white supremacist right, even if they don't all think of themselves as racists or terrorists.

The question for me is still, *how* distinct and distinct from what?

We know that the miltia movement is anti-government, but we also know that it has meaningful areas of overlap and influence when it comes to dedicated libertarian-oriented, 2A MAGA folks.

We know the "boogaloo movement" guys are miltia-styled and share online space, especially 2A and gun enthusiast space, with militia.

Again, though, I have yet to see a lot of evidence they shared offline space with militia folks beyond maybe attending the occasional gun rally.

It's clear this is an emerging movement that borrows militia aesthetic but seems to have picked up not just a (now-widespread) Nazi meme, but an enthusiasm for online terror Nazi-style accelerationist strategy & tactics.

We know militia and MAGA share a largely-unfenced property border.

We know part of Trump's strategy is to encourage the pollenation of MAGA diehards with some of the explicit paranoias that previously tended to stay out of the mainstream and on the militia side of that border.

The coalescence of a new, white supremacist, terror-friendly emergent movement is a problem in and of itself, but what scares the bejeezus out of me is seeing outright, explicit, violent accelerationism at least styling itself around militia movement, MAGA's next door neighbor.

I don't know militia movement well enough to understand how much of it is or isn't privately accelerationist, but I strongly suspect most seriously-engaged members aren't going to leap up and start openly calling for the boog, if only for red flag law reasons.

It looks to me, as a non-expert on militia, like the "boogaloo movement" is a bunch of internet dudes who've patched together some markers of militias and gun culture, slapped them onto accelerationist Nazi's strategy, and jumped half-cocked in front of the news cameras.

They're white supremacist, but it isn't an explicit, guiding philosophy so much as some level of ignorance about who exactly they're borrowing from and what exactly the aesthetics/strategy/language/tactics they're borrowing mean and do and advance.

The thing is, that likely makes them MORE dangerous, not less.

To the extent it exists (or maybe it doesn't, idk, again, not my specialty), militia-style accelerationism isn't explicit, which means it's not likely going to spread from militia to MAGA.

Online terror Nazi accelerationism 1000% exists, but it's usually so bathed in swastikas that it's not likely to bleed from where it is right now into MAGA base.

Trump's base is racist af, but I think Hitler-heiling is still a bit of a turn off for most of them.

What's scary to me with the "boogaloo movement" is that it seems almost entirely distinct from the pre-existing Nazi boogaloo movement, to embrace the shit MAGA loves about militia aesthetic (guns/camo/etc), and offers terror accelerationism in that militia outfit w/o swastikas.

Basically, they're creating a space for MAGA types to adopt that violent accelerationism-- to start contemplating *fomenting* civil war-- without getting called Nazis.

It serves that meal of violent accelerationism without the sitting down with Nazis stigma.

As divided as our country is, a "jesus christ things have to change in a big way and right now" sentiment is one of the few things that unites the bulk of the electorate.

No one's convincingly denying the place is on fire at this point.

Trump ran & won by stoking that sentiment within the right, which has been spinning ever-more elaborate fantasies about Daddy Trump's sudden, triumphal moment of arresting the entire deep state is just around the corner.

That's literally the whole narrative and appeal of QANON.

Trump's election is what really got Dems on the "shit is on fire" train, and most Dems still entertain a somewhat realistic fantasy to lean on (electing Biden) to keep from going off the deep end.

MAGAs don't have that.

They think the election will be stolen fraudulently if things stay the way they are, so their hourglass of hope is down to its last grains of sand.

That as much as or more than the uprisings and COVID are what makes MAGA such a powderkeg at the moment, and the "boogaloo movement" seems like just close enough to that property line to shower those kegs with sparks.

That's why pinpointing its origin and location is so important, and why understanding what existing far right movements might feed the flames is so critical.

Tracing its lineage matters not for research turf reasons, but for assessing and combatting the threat reasons.

Understanding where it's distinct from and where it overlaps with other far right movements is something we have to do to identify what started the fire and what's feeding it.

The fire is its own thing, at this point.

Its parentage still matters.

Anyway, I'm grateful we're having this conversation, because it's one that needs to be had.

Emergent movements are messy, chaotic, confusing, and on top of everything else, not usually even wholly formed.

Getting to their roots and family tree may seem like an academic exercise, but as someone else said yesterday, you don't want to go pour water on a fire only to discover you've now just splashed flaming grease everywhere.

It's necessary and frustrating detective work, but again, I'm glad we're doing it.

As beside-the-point as it may sometimes seem from the outside, it's analysis that we need if we want to shape our strategy in an informed way.

It gives me hope to see it happen.