How did the zip ties and flex cuffs seen in the hands of rioters at the senate become a go-to piece of far right gear? @KELLYWEILL and I took a look at the history of zip ties on the far-right thedailybeast.com/why-were-the-c…
Not surprisingly, immigrants were among the early victims of the far right's zip tie fetish. As undocumented immigrants became a right wing hobby horse during GWB's attempts to pass immigration reform, militias traveled to the border to mount vigilante patrols.
Among those militias were Rusty's Rangers, led by Kevin Massey, who held suspected migrants at gunpoint in zip ties. As this search warrant application footnote shoes, among Massey's devotees was Barry Croft, one of the militia members who allegedly tried to kidnap Gov Whitmer 
The gear picked up popularity among right wing militias during the Trump admin who saw themselves as informally deputized by law enforcement to arrest left wing protesters. Like in this incident where militias ziptied a protester for federal officers streetroots.org/news/2017/06/0…
As @IwriteOK told us “The zip-tie discourse started with people who wanted to arrest their political enemies in the streets and evolved into what we saw on the 6th.”
Highly recommend his piece here, which shows far-right extremists in leaked discord chats urging users to bring zip ties to protests to arrest counter-protesters both before and after Charlottesville bellingcat.com/news/americas/…
But the kind of vigilantism and entitlement the zipties represent broke into the mainstream after riots and protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. Fox News anchor and former MTV VJ Kennedy urged Fox viewers to bring them to protests and arrest suspected rioters
“If you’re going out protesting and you are a peaceful protester, take some zip ties and subdue some of these people in a citizen’s arrest.” mediaite.com/tv/foxs-kenned…
Portland area antifa activists sent us pictures of protests from 2018-2020 that demonstrate zip ties and flex cuffs had become common bits of paramilitary gear for the right wing extremists at protests, like the helmets, body armor, and tacticool kit.
In the days before the 1/6 riot, users on Parler and The Donald were urging soon-to-be-rioters to do citizens arrests and bring zip ties.
Anyway, yes, these are at base just small strips of plastic. But working at Danger Room taught me gear tells stories and zip ties tell the story of how the far right sought to mimic and usurp the legitimate functions of LE and ultimately turn it against LE.
(I hasten to add: Munchel and Brock were not the only ones at the Capitol with zip ties and flex cuffs)
https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1347998905431171072
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