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The kinds of racist rhetoric and conspiracism that are common currency among organizations like Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys are not just benignly kooky; they trace ideological threads that have driven a great deal of terrifying harassment and extreme violence.
Far-right propagandist Alex Jones disseminated conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. This resulted in the parents of children murdered by Adam Lanza receiving intense waves of harassment and threats, forcing some of them to move repeatedly. 
Alex Jones was also a major vector in pushing the "PizzaGate" hoax, which culminated in a gunman firing a rifle inside a pizza shop while attempting to "investigate" the claims of the conspiracy. Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson cites Jones as the inspiration for his activism.
Islamophobic rhetoric and conspiracism are also common among Gibson's followers and members of the Proud Boys. Patriot Prayer follower Jeremy Christian was heard yelling such hateful rhetoric immediately before he stabbed three Portlanders, killing two of them.
Far-right groups offer social validation to adherents who accept, participate in, and propagate these kinds of conspiracies, creating a cultural environment in which acts of extreme (often racist) violence are incentivized and appear justified by elaborate and esoteric intrigues.
On January 6th, a Seattle Proud Boy named Buckey Wolfe, who had a history of struggles with mental illness, allegedly murdered his brother with a sword during a mental health crisis in which he believed that his brother had been replaced by "lizards".
Following Wolfe's Feb 2018 introduction to the Proud Boys, he gradually began to engage with and interweave various paranoid far-right conspiracy theories such as "Q anon". We've found little evidence suggesting these conspiracies were part of Wolfe's worldview before that time.
In recent weeks, traces of another pervasive far-right conspiracy theory began to appear frequently in Wolfe's social media output. "Lizard People" have become a staple of far-right conspiracies, and often function as a thinly-veiled anti-Semitic trope.
It is worth noting that Wolfe's recent, highly disturbed posts complained specifically about his perception of the distorted appearance of people's eyes who he believed to be "Lizards".
In the aftermath of the murder, the Proud Boys are rushing to distance themselves from Wolfe via their website, which also features an article about George Soros-- a frequent subject of anti-Semitic conspiracies-- whose header photo portrays Soros with "reptilian" eyes.
