Thread by @VeraMBergen

I'm at today's “Justice for J6” protest in DC, because reporting on these groups is part of my beat, but the overhyping of the significance of this rally is obscuring what has been happening to these far-right movements in the aftermath of Jan. 6 far from the country's capital...

Law enforcement is erring on the side of caution given…everything, but framing it as “preventing another Jan. 6” makes zero sense. There's been pretty much nothing similar happening in the lead-up to this rally.

Here’s our story from Jan 5 for comparison time.com/5926403/trump-…

Over the past nine months, the same people that made up the Jan. 6 crowd have been coming together in different ways at the local level, online & IRL – especially at events protesting vaccine mandates and Covid measures, which feed into anti-government conspiracies and paranoia.

"The threat hasn’t dissipated, it’s factionalized," a former DHS official who tracked domestic extremism told me yesterday. "This is a time period where the hardcore people get more radical… A lot of them are kind of laying low and quiet right now.”

Hard to overstate just how much many far-right movements that made up the Jan. 6 insurrection have been urging supporters to ignore events like today's rally & focus on the local level.

For ex., this has been pinned to the main page of one of the largest QAnon forums for months.

There are signs that this post-Jan. 6 "focus on the local level" messaging has been effective. In April, I reported how dozens of QAnon-linked candidates - some of whom had participated on Jan. 6 - have been winning local elections time.com/5955248/qanon-…

Important to remember that in many communities across the US, the actions of the Jan. 6 participants they know are viewed as patriotic rather than criminal.

@wjhenn & I spent some time profiling one earlier this year.

“It could easily be any of us.”
time.com/6078530/army-v…

Matt Braynard, who just opened the rally, yesterday said “already this rally is a success,” echoing analysts & journalists who track these groups. “There’s going to be so much media...It’s not really a numbers game, it’s a message game.”

(He ain't wrong) washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/…

A speaker at this rally has been leading protestors in chanting the name of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot & killed by a police officer on Jan. 6. In the following days she was hailed as a “freedom fighter” & “first victim of the second Civil War” time.com/5928249/ashli-…

“What happened…will provide source material for years & years of propaganda they’ll use in hopes of recruiting new individuals & inspiring further action,” @JaredHolt told me Jan 10.

Babbitt’s name played a significant role in rewriting of this history
time.com/5928249/ashli-…

The scene an hour into the “Justice for Jan. 6” rally. US Capitol Police say they arrested a man who had a knife at 12:40 pm for a weapons violation. Otherwise it’s been pretty quiet. Still seem to be as many of not more onlookers and media than protestors.

Oops, tagged the wrong @jaredlholt

The massive police presence at today’s rally has been as much of an attraction as the protest itself - shields, helmets and riot gear, helicopters overheard, officers in cars, on foot, on bikes, on horses.

Matt Braynard, a former Trump campaign aide who organized this event he insisted was non-partisan, closed like this: "This battle doesn't end today, in fact I think this is the beginning..the beginning of the 'America First' right taking over community organizing in this country"

👇🏼👇🏼

https://twitter.com/willcarless/status/1439267883515797509

One more time for the people in the back: repeating the events of Jan. 6 was never the goal today. Here’s my full story pulling together the threads above. — 30 — time.com/6099532/januar…