Corey Stewart Caught Praising The Confederacy In 2017 Campaign Video
The Republican Party's nominee for Senator in Virginia really is as bad as you've heard, probably worse.
Virginia Republican Senate candidate Corey Stewart, who is already a controversial due to his courting of the alt-right, has been caught on a 2017 video of a speech he made while running for the Republican nomination for Governor praising the Confederacy and Virginia’s decision to secede from the Union, which of course led to the Civil War:
Corey Stewart, the Republican nominee for a US Senate seat for Virginia, praised in a speech last year Virginia’s decision in 1861 to secede from the Union, putting it on par with rebellions during the American Revolution and today.
The Virginia Republican made the comments in April 2017 at an event in South Boston, Virginia, hosted by an unapologetic secessionist. A video of his remarks, given during his failed 2017 gubernatorial run, was posted on his Facebook account.
He is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, a strong favorite to keep his seat, and national Republicans are worried that Stewart’s candidacy will turn off some GOP voters, potentially hurting Republican’s ballot races.
“When you say you’re from Virginia, when you travel outside of this state and somebody asks where you’re from, you say with pride, ‘I am from Virginia. I’m very, very proud of it,'” Stewart said. “You’re very, very proud of it. And why is it? It’s because of our history, folks. It’s because of our history. This is the state of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and James Monroe. It’s a state of the founders. It’s the state of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
“But it’s also the state of Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, and J.E.B. Stuart. Because, at the base of it, Virginians, we think for ourselves,” he continued. “And if the established order is wrong, we rebel. We did that in the Revolution, we did it in the Civil War, and we’re doing it today. We’re doing it today because they’re trying to rob us of everything that we hold dear: our history, our heritage, our culture.”
Stewart, whose defense of Confederate symbols became a staple of his unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign, defined the established order earlier in the speech as the mainstream media, liberals, Democrats and establishment Republicans “trying to convince us that there’s something wrong with our heritage in Virginia.”
In response to a comment request from CNN, Stewart released the following statement: “Unlike Wimpy Tim Kaine, Virginians have a warrior spirit and a rebel heart.”
Stewart has continually tried to downplay his past ties and praise of white nationalist figures like Jason Kessler, an organizer of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and Paul Nehlen, the anti-Semitic Republican congressional candidate who took on Paul Ryan in 2016.
According to records from Virginia’s Department of Elections, the event in which he praised secession was paid for by avowed secessionist George Randall. Stewart was introduced by Randall’s wife, Donna, who also promoted the event on Facebook.
Here’s the Facebook video:
CNN also reports that Randall and his wife also attended the alt-right “Unite The Right” rally that took place in Charlottesville just under a year ago that included tiki-torch carrying protesters shouting Nuremberg rally type slogans and, of course, the death of a young woman at the hands of a white supremacist. At that rally, Mr. Randall was seen marching alongside former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Stewart’s rhetoric here is not at all surprising, of course.
As I noted earlier this week, he built his ill-fated campaign for the Republican Gubernatorial nomination last year and his successful bid for the party’s Senate nomination this year on openly appealing to the alt-right, to white supremacists, and to people who have what can only be described as an odd fetish for the Confederacy. Additionally, Stewart gave this speech in South Boston, Virginia, a town located in Halifax County in far south Central Virginia within mere miles of the border with North Carolina. This is a part of the Commonwealth that is probably the most “southern” part of the state and one in which it is not at all uncommon to see Confederate flags flying in front of buildings and private homes, among other things. With the possible exception of the extreme southwestern part of the state that borders North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, it is one of the areas where a message like Stewart’s is likely to resonate the strongest. Unfortunately for Stewart, it’s also one of the least populated areas of the state.
As for Stewart’s rhetoric about the Civil War and secession, it is, of course, entirely historically inaccurate. Secession and the war were not about rebelling against an oppressive government in the same sense that the American Revolution was rebelling against the oppressive and unrepresentative government of Great Britain. The secession of South Carolina and the states of the Deep South was not prompted by any overt act by the United States, but by the fact that Abraham Lincoln, who wasn’t even necessarily an abolitionist himself, was elected President. The fact that Lincoln could not have done much of anything to threaten slavery in the South thanks to the fact that Congress, and especially the Senate, was firmly in the control of Southern politicians, was seemingly not sufficient succor to the group of elitists and pro-slavery radicals who pushed the secession movement. What did push the movement, though, was slavery and racism. One need only read the Secession Resolutions themselves, or the words of the man who became the Vice-President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens: (emphasis mine)
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.
The historical record is clear as to what the Confederacy was and the fact that people like Stewart continue to lie about it is troublesome, to say the least.
They don’t want to come right out and say that secession was about slavery, so they claim it was about “states’ rights.” The only right they wanted was the right to keep slaves.
It makes me sad that Jeongish “end of white people” rhetoric has given this “white nationalism” crap a respectable sheen to some people. I can’t even take comfort from the fact that they were all deplorable already.
VA GOP is on path to go the same way the CA GOP went.
He promised that his campaign for the senate would be “vicious and ruthless.”
If nothing else Stewart just got his street cred with the the hardcore Republicans in Virginia.
@James Pearce: I see what you did there! Oh you are a clever one, James Pearce! Now what about Hillary?
Years ago on OTB when there was post about the Confederacy, there would be a crew of regulars who would “educate” us on states rights, and how Lee was anti-slavery and that the original Klan was really just an anti-crime neighborhood group. They don’t seem to come around here to say that any more. I guess we must’ve convinced them they were wrong….
@MarkedMan: I know, I know….you thought that a decade of telling white kids raised post-Crash to check their privilege meant they were going to check their privilege. Turns out, they go join the Proud Boys instead.
High five, guys.
Also caught on video: Devin Nunes telling GOP donors that they need to keep control of congress in November so that they can keep obstructing justice for Trump.
@James Pearce:
Douche’s gonna douche, man. Any male who’d join the Proud Boys was never going to end up a real man anyways. Fight Club wannabes are as old as time and been begging for someone to notice how manly they are as they get punched over cereals, realizing how much they suck. Notice how few productive, traditional examples of masculinity join groups like that.
Seriously, you knew kids doing this in grade school. Little boys playing games. Grown men doing it is just sad AF.
Always remember; the confederates were traitors to their country, and they lost.
And no matter what anyone tries to say, the Civil War was about keeping slaves.
It does explain their love of Dennison, who is clearly a traitor himself and a yuuuge racist to boot.
Laura Ingraham got into a little racism herself:
@KM: Here’s our man Pearce’s schtick. He comes here to pretend he is liberal and anti-Trump. In real life he’s a Trump supporter who thinks he’s being very clever. (He’s not.). He leads with feigned disapproval of his boy only in order to throw shade and, tricksy tricksy, cast doubt into the minds of the lurkers on this site (and no doubt, other sites too). So a constant refrain from him is that you shouldn’t be calling out or attacking Trump or the Republicans in whatever way you happen to be doing it. Note that it doesn’t actually matter how you are calling out the Republi-Trumps, whether you are pointing out that Trump bragged about grabbing women by the p*ssy, or having secret meetings with the Russians, or promoting racist confederacy ideals. 100% of the time his response is to a) “warn” us that pursuing this line of attack only plays into Trump’s master plan, b) “warn” us that pursuing this line of attack only makes the Republicans mad so they have to hit us because we were asking for it, or c) just go in for distraction and use the comment as an excuse to bring up something that he wants to discuss instead, something that might conceivably divide the anti-Trumpers and get a heated argument going about another subject entirely. So we get Hillary’s emails, or Jeong is a racist, or some other nonsense.
In this post he manage to roll b and c together. Well done, James!
He is not a Trump supporter. He is just an old white guy who likes to blame the left for why his family and friends are racists.
@Yank: He’s basically the epitome of the “white moderate” MLK wrote about.
@James Pearce: James, your analysis of what motivates these people is as shallow as your experience with them. Trust me, they were looking for an excuse long before anybody told them a simple truth in a way they could take umbrage with. What I don’t understand is why you feel the need to make excuses for them.
Has everyone seen, or read about, the Nunes tapes? In which he admits his goal is not to get to the truth about Dennison and Russia, but to defend Dennison should Mueller find wrong-doing.
These Trumpers lie about what they said last week, even when presented with video evidence. Why would history be any different?
So much for the “Party of Lincoln.”
@MarkedMan: oh, good lord. He is not a Trumper. He’s a just a moderate Democrat of the scolding variety.
Do you know how there are basically two types of Chrianity in this country — the “love and help thy neighbor” Christianity and the “you’re doing it wrong” Christianity? Pearce is like that second group, only with Democrats.
No less infuriating at times. But not Actually the enemy.
@Kylopod:
Fun Fact: Lincoln was a white supremacist.
It’s true. For the longest time he wanted to ship the slaves back to Africa, to Liberia, where they would be free and nowhere near the white people.
Just because you don’t think people should be enslaved doesn’t mean you think of them as equals.
He recognized Fredrick Douglas an an intellectual heavyweight, but just believed there must be some white blood in there.
He evolved a bit, partly from pragmatism (how would we get all the blacks to Liberia?) and partly through exposure (the black regiments in the civil war were better than he expected) but he was very much a product of his time, and his time was racist as fvck.
He was an open-minded white supremacist. An inspiration to us all, in challenging our own beliefs and not getting caught up in dogma.
Most Americans don’t like those demographic changes, Laura? Or most racist white people?
@James Pearce: Ahh, silly old man…if we want to find out who is causing all of these racists to come out from under their slimy rocks and proudly declare themselves, we need look no further than the fool in the White House…he is the person who is giving racism respectability to some people…he is the one who is getting praise from filth like David Duke…he is the one who is setting the tone and making it fashionable to hate “those people”…
@MarkedMan:
I read the comments here. I don’t do that at 95% of sites I visit. But there are lots of smart commenters here who have things to contribute.
There are also 5 or 6 commenters who are best skipped.
@MarkedMan: Bunge tried the same step b thing in response to a comment I had made during the SHS restaurant fluff up. He warned me that my attitude of not caring that she was being discriminated against would only end up hurting my friends when the other side responded in kind.
I don’t buy it when Pearce invokes it either.
Just FYI for everyone who isn’t following that story closely, taken out of context, a few of Jeong’s comments look racist. Read in context she was just being snarky. Alt-Right troll dipshits are trying to weaponize a few out of context comments.
@Yank: No, you’re confusing him with *the Q.* Pearce is about the age of a Gen-Xer.
It’s almost like Corey Stewart doesn’t know that the Democrats were the real racists.
Noted radical Kevin Drum:
I wonder how many more Proud Boys he made with those outlandish and intemperate statements. If only he talked nicely about Republicans, surely they would see the error of their ways.
@Gustopher:
You may be right, and perhaps I’m guilty of near-Q level over analysis. But I think not. Nearly 100% of the time his comments fall into one or more of the three categories I listed above. On the very rare occasion when they don’t, they don’t involve politics.
@Gustopher:
I know. I was simply noting the irony that the so-called Party of Lincoln has become the party of apologists for the enemy Lincoln was fighting. This is nothing new, of course. For example, during the 2008 Republican Convention Mike Huckabee made the following curious remark:
“Centralized governments may care for you from cradle to grave, but they also control you…. Abraham Lincoln reminded us that a government that can do everything for us can also take everything from us.”
To this day, for the life of me I can’t figure out what Huck was saying here. He might have been praising Lincoln as a small-government conservative–a characterization that would be wildly ahistorical. On the other hand, he might have been condemning Lincoln as a tyrant, the man who utilized the oppressive federal government to “take everything from” the South. That would not be an uncommon perspective for a modern Arkansas Republican who has defended the Confederate Flag, but it’s not something Republicans with national aspirations are normally frank about. It seemed to me that Huck was deliberately trying to make his statement ambiguous so that it would be interpreted differently depending on who was hearing it.
Republicans today want to have it both ways: to bask in Lincoln’s exalted reputation while at the same time pandering to those who celebrate his enemies.
Or they’re joining the Proud Boys because emasculation and resentment is all they can expect to get out of illiberal progressives…
And I thought my schtick was to give you an account of how things look through my eyes. I get that my perspective means nothing to many of the posters here.
I do not share that opinion.
I’m only 41, so probably younger than many of you. And why is it that when I call out racism on the left, I’m always accused of excusing it on the right?
Why is it so difficult to accept that racism in this country hasn’t actually been defeated?
@Daryl and his brother Darryl: Has everyone seen, or read about, the Nunes tapes? In which he admits his goal is not to get to the truth about Dennison and Russia, but to defend Dennison should Mueller find wrong-doing.
His opponent in November should just have a campaign ad where all they do is play the tape with some simple voice-over commentary like “Is this person’s first loyalty to the country or to the President?”
@James Pearce:
Speaking of emasculating Proud Boys…
Proud Boy fails to rip up sign.
It’s so wonderful. Make sure to watch with the sound, as the running commentary is extra good.
The funny thing here is that Stewart is not from Virginia; he’s from Minnesota. This is not about heritage. It’s either about being a garbage or pretending to be one because he thinks Virginians are morons.
Either way, if you can’t vote for Kaine, vote for the Libertarian. This garbage fire should not get a single vote.
@Gustopher:
Is it wonderful though?
I mean, I was down with the “laugh at em” mode back in 2016, but in 2018, with Trump in the White House and “Proud” Boys in the streets, I have to ask, who’s laughing now?
@SenyorDave:
Don’t know about Nunes constituency, but I live in a county in Washington State that went 68% Trump and is about as red as they come on the state map. Here, most people would probably answer that question
@James Pearce: I am! It was hilarious! (I’m also gravitating back to not reading posts from you. Count it as a victory for your purity if you wish.)
I mean, come on–the guy is not smart enough to know that you can’t tear a corrugated plastic sign and stays there being filmed for several minutes. How am I supposed to take him seriously?
ETA: I promise not to feed the troll again this thread.
@MarkedMan: A very accomplished concern troll is how I’ve categorized him.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: That is why I could never imagine running for office. The fact that anybody could possibly place loyalty to any politician over loyalty to country stuns me, but I guess a large amount of Trump’s support would definitely go that way.
I still think if I were Nunes’ opponent I would still go after him for his statements. If it doesn’t bother someone Nunes was going to get that person’s vote anyway, and maybe some people on the fence might be swayed.
Doug (or James or Steve or Stephen), speaking for myself, I would actually appreciate a post and a discussion thread on Jeong, and on other topics such as political correctness at universities and the like. Trump is an idiot and a traitor and the Republicans are Quislings, but there are real issues that are worth discussion.
@James Pearce:
I get that you want us all the be excellent to one another, and shrug off abortion, and concentrate on what makes us all the same while singing Kumbaya, but that’s not going to work — not alone.
There is no one thing that will change America, or bring us all together, or even slow the far right’s assault on America. Go with all of it at once.
Laughing at a sad little Proud Boy is a good thing. Turning their entire organization into a laughing stock would be a great thing.
Sure, we also need lawsuits, voter registration campaigns, and even seeking common ground and singing Kumbaya, but making fascism uncool is also a big thing.
Pitchforks have multiple prongs.
@James Pearce:
Being a reasonable human being is emasculating? Is that really how it looks through your eyes?
Um, who are you saying thinks racism has been defeated? It’s pretty obvious that racism is thriving — back out in the open, after a long period of pretending. Why do you think this isn’t an improvement? Isn’t it much easier to confront things when they’re out in the open like that?
The problem is you like to make a false equivalence between the left and the right when it comes to racism and this in effect minimizes the problem. Sarah Jeong saying mean things about white people isn’t all that important. It is crass and unprofessional, but at the end of the day it has zero impact on the lives of white americans. Yet, intentionally or unintentionally, people like you like to treat that on par with actually racism that matters (ex. racial profiling, systematic racism that upholds the white power structure etc.) and that is the problem.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
You don’t have to take him “seriously” to understand and lament how he came to be. You don’t even have to agree with him. You can even pity him a little.
But you should at least know that if the progressive left doesn’t want to be this dude’s refuge, someone else will, and I kind of wish that would sink before an entire generation of young white men decides that they have no need of liberalism because liberalism doesn’t work for them.
So you think I’m “very accomplished”…
And yet, it seems to me that, the opposite is happening. Our political culture is so toxic, people want to scratch at the resulting eczema with fascism. Why?
No, that’s my point. The emasculating BS that comes with each helping of social justice rhetoric isn’t reasonable or all that helpful.
Here’s the thing that gets me about Jeong: If you’re an underprivileged minority, you can spend years being racist on Twitter and not only is it okay because you’re an underprivileged minority, but it might also be the way you stand out enough to get on the NY Times editorial board.
If you’re Roseanne, though….
The double standard is so glaring and so obvious that even a Trump supporter can see it. Why can’t the average lefty? Instead we get this “racism that actually matters” stuff. What I’m trying to say is that Jeongish racism –casual, pervasive, and anti-white– matters too. You just can’t do that stuff.
You certainly can’t do that stuff and expect to be considered an oracle on racial equality or that it won’t have a reaction. Doesn’t the last few years prove that definitively?
I hate to say it but @Pearce is right: Left-wing bigotry is hurting the Left. Guess what percentage of Hillary voters were white? 60%. White voters remain the largest single component of Democratic voters and attacks on them, attacks that are not based on actions or ideology but simply on race, are by definition racist.
Now, does this anti-white racism equal anti-black racism? No, of course not. There is no equivalency in terms of impact. It wasn’t white bodies that inspired Strange Fruit. But the progressive Left’s habit of attacking its allies is absolutely self-destructive. As is giving the Right ammunition.
There is no equivalency in terms of impact. 90% of white people could not care less that someone calls them a ‘cracker,’ while 90% of black people are justifiably sick of the N word. To pretend that whites generally are victims is absurd: we have all the political power plus all the money, and we have since 1776.
But, that said, politically it’s just fcking stupid. And we cannot afford stupid.
kevin drum:
Roseanne was dropped because advertisers were starting to pull out. It was a pure business decision by ABC. No one outside of twitter knows who the hell Jeong is. If she were impacting the NYT’s bottomline, then she would have been gone. On top of that this is perfect example of the false equivalence I am talking about. What Jeong’s tweeted was no where near as bad as what Roseanne tweeted.
BTW, Trump supporters don’t give a crap about Jeong. They fan outcry, because they know they can exploit moderates like you to make a false equivalence between personal racism and systematic racism that maintains white supremacy.
@Yank:
It has long been a rallying cry among white racist conservatives to complain about “reverse racism.” I think of when Pat Buchanan in the early ’90s defended David Duke by telling his fellow conservatives to “take a hard look at Duke’s portfolio of winning issues” such as “reverse discrimination against white folks.”
Of course they don’t give a crap about Jeong’s remarks, but there is a real contingent of white people who do feel genuinely threatened by what they see as a wave of political correctness which they believe holds them back in life. A white person who gets passed over for a position to a minority will often wind up believing the minority only got the position because of affirmative action, whatever the facts of the matter may be.
That’s the seductive appeal of complaints over alleged anti-white bias: they become an all-purpose explanation that whites can use to attack minorities while thinking they’re the ones fighting racism rather than perpetuating it. It was exemplified by Rush Limbaugh’s comments on Donovan McNabb that got him fired from ESPN. In Limbaugh’s telling, he wasn’t saying black people can’t be good quarterbacks, he was saying the media have a habit of overrating black quarterbacks. Of course once you accept that premise you can question the ability of any black quarterback who comes along: just claim everyone else is guilty of bias and you’re the one seeing the unvarnished truth. It’s a perfect excuse because it’s airtight. And for white people with an overwhelming desire to believe the world is stacked against them, this way of thinking can be very seductive.
@Michael Reynolds:
(☉_☉) Woah.
Bottom line: The cause of anti-racism cannot be advanced by racists.
@Yank:
What utter crap. Jeong’s five years of “cancel white people” tweets are much worse than that one time Roseanne made fun of Valerie Jarrett.
@Michael Reynolds: I agree. I hate the defenses of Jeong. She is free to tweet the way she does, and I understand her motivations, but to then be given a platform at the NYT does make liberals seem like hypocrites, and hurts us.
https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/534826243389423617
Oh please, go read the thread that lead up to that tweet. It was no where near as bad as what Roseanne said about Jarrett. Again, this is the crap I am talking about when it comes to race and you moderates, you guys can’t see spot the differences if it slapped you in the face.
How could anyone who has the mindset to join this idiotic association ever find common cause with liberalism…
@Yank:
Differences? Both women wrote racist tweets.
The only difference is in quantity, not quality.
@An Interested Party:
Personal growth and maturity. Mentorship. I can think of a lot of ways. You can’t?
It certainly would take a lot of growth and maturity to get rid of the chauvinistic thinking of that organization…you be sure to track down that guy who couldn’t rip up the sign and show him some mentorship…let me know how that works out for you…
@James Pearce: (I’m breaking my promise, but only because I feel the comment is important to make, sorry.)
I see where the break is. There is enough evangelical in your outlook to see everyone as “reachable.” Dr. James Kennedy wrote a book ages ago called Evangelical Explosion. In it, he posited his theory that when the “message of the gospel” is not enough, if you will, you change the message to appeal to “the needs, wants, desires” of the target audience. (This probably explains quite a bit about the cognitive dissonance that goes with understanding what Evangelicals are thinking by supporting Trump, BTW.) It comes to “the flock” in messages on the passage about Jesus and the “woman at the well;” in fact, one such message that I heard was titled by the pastor who presented it “Jesus-The Master Salesman.”
Kennedy’s theory, I propose, is at the root of whatever passes for a message in your mini sermons/screeds about *progressives* as you define them.
I gave up believing that everyone was “reachable” a long time ago. I rejected Kennedy’s idea at first glance because I didn’t believe that 1) the Gospel is a sales pitch, and 2) that I should treat things that I hold as universal truths as malleable elements in the aforementioned sales pitch. As Ann Wilson so eloquently put it, “I can’t sell you what you don’t want to buy.” Moreover, while I think that there are a lot of things schools could (hypothetically) do better, I’ve seen kids throw themselves under buses of their own design every day of my career as a teacher. I believe that most people I encounter are not deluded, misinformed, deceived, beset by Satan, or anything else. The decisions they make are mostly based on who they are, who they aspire to be, and what they want the world to look like. Proud boys, gang bangers, whatever, most people are also what Rogers called “congruent” and so, are unavailable for redemption of any sort. They are who they want to be. Protestations that they are products of the society (even though they are that) are mostly just lame-ass justifications they use when they’re not with their homs.
Finally, I hope that your generation (I’m easily old enough to be your father) is not a monolithic as you seem to believe it is. Either way, we’re gonna have a “generation of Proud Boys” no matter what, because some people–and waaayyyyy more than you imagine–just want to hate.
Back to you…
@Kylopod:
This feeling affects many people of minority extraction, too. Richard Rodriguez wrote about the phenomenon in Hunger for Memory IIRC.
@An Interested Party:
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I don’t think every Proud Boy is redeemable, but I’ve seen the documentaries about former skinheads removing the racist tattoos from their faces. I have to think a not-so-insignificant number of the Proud Boys are going to realize they don’t want to devote their lives to white supremacy when all they want to do is “own the libs” during Trump’s presidency and they too will walk away from the movement.