Thread by @jsrailton

MUST READ: despite open violence, #ProudBoys weren't treated as a serious threat by law enforcement.

Why?

Damming article details falsified police reports, personal & financial ties, tacit support & willful ignorance.

By @ddknyt & @alanfeuer
Story: nytimes.com/2021/03/14/us/…

2/ “They committed violence in public, used videos of that violence to promote themselves for other rallies and then traveled across the country to engage in violence again...How that didn’t attract F.B.I. attention is hard for me to understand.”
- @RethinkIntel

3/ #ProudBoys' street violence IS their PR strategy.

It perpetuates the myth of constant danger from an adversary that they protect 'us' from.

Which is literally is a page out of the 1920s fascist playbook.

Text: Robert Paxton citing Eve Rosenhaft.

4/ Why the police & #ProudBoys affinity?

It's not about LAW, but about ORDER.

If you see society as a rightful order of "us" vs "them" ... easy to think that police & Proud Boys are doing the same thing: using violence to protect you..from them.

Nothing to do with rule of law.

5/ @jasonintrator's latest book convinced me that this "us" vs "them" is at the heart of so much of what happened in the last 4 years.

It's a quick read & most important thing I've read this year.

Please, please read it.

bookshop.org/books/how-fasc…