The unapologetic Proud Boys stand front and center as presidential race heads into final weeks
Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes offers no apologies for the wild Manhattan street brawl than landed two of his fervent followers behind bars last year.
“When we fought these guys, these Antifa kids who are all professor’s sons or who are Marxists because daddy told them to, it feels sexist to beat them up,” he explained in a video from a speaking appearance posted on the group’s website. “Because when you punch them, it feels like a girl. Their faces just cave in.”
So it goes for the polarizing “western chauvinist” group founded four years ago in New York City as Proud Boys' favorite President Trump ran for election against Hillary Clinton. Current international chairman Enrique Tarrio, in an interview last summer with The Daily Beast, said the group’s pro-Trump numbers continued to swell as the 2020 election approached.
Both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League denounce the Proud Boys as misogynistic and anti-immigrant, with the SPLC noting one of its members was a principal organizer of the Charlottesville, Va., rally where a local woman was killed.
“Their disavowals of bigotry are belied by their actions: rank-and-file Proud Boys and leaders regularly spout white nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists," according to the SPLC. “They are known for anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric."
The group’s website mentions Proud Boys chapters across New York state, from the Long Island suburbs to central, western and northern New York. And reports from New Jersey during the ongoing presidential race indicate the Proud Boys flag waved at two events this past summer: A pro-Trump gathering in Hopatcong, and a pro-police rally in Fair Lawn.
“Easily recognizable, thanks to their black and yellow Fred Perry polo shirts and red 'Make America Great Again’ baseball caps, members are regulars at far-right demonstrations and Trump rallies,” said the ADL.
The group returned to the headlines after Trump’s recent call for the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” when he was asked to denounce white supremacists during his debate with Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
A day later, Trump declared he was against “all white supremacists” including the Proud Boys, insisting he knew nothing about the group.
Yet presidential ally Roger Stone, whose 40-month prison sentence was commuted three months ago by Trump, shares “a long relationship with the Proud Boys, posing in countless pictures with various members ... receiving support from the group during his 2019 trial and even using them as private security at events,” the ADL reported.
Tarrio, speaking last month with a Florida television station, bluntly defended his group against various charges.
“I denounce white supremacy,” said Tarrio, the group’s Afro-Cuban leader. “I denounce anti-Semitism. I denounce racism. I denounce fascism. I denounce communism and any other -ism that is prejudice towards people because of their race, religion, culture, tone of skin.”
The same “stand back and stand by" message was scrawled last week on “The Wall of Lies,” a Brooklyn outdoor mural listing 20,000 untruths allegedly uttered by Trump since his January 2017 inauguration. No arrests were made for the vandalism, and no specific group was linked to the incident.
An email seeking comment from the Proud Boys was not returned Saturday.
McInnis' remarks referenced an October 2018 Upper East Side brawl that followed his speech at the Manhattan Republican Club. Ten Proud Boys were busted in the street fight with four black-clad Antifa members. Surveillance camera video from a nearby building captured the Proud Boys attacking the smaller group, viciously punching and kicking their overmatched targets.
Proud Boys Maxwell Hare, 28, and John Kinsman, 41, are still serving four-year sentences for their Manhattan trial convictions on charges of attempted gang assault, attempted assault and riot. Seven others charged in the street fight pleaded guilty.
According to the SPLC, the group was founded during a series of meetings in New York City bars by a group of “like-minded men ... who bonded over their shared frustration with PC culture.”
Four years later, according to the ADL, little has changed.
“The Proud Boys represent an unconventional strain of American right-wing extremism," the ADL wrote on its website. “While the group can be described as violent, nationalistic, Islamaphobic, transphobic and misogynistic, its members represent a range of ethnic backgrounds, and its leaders vehemently protest any allegations of racism.”
