The Proud Boys Are Sidelined: Content With Letting Trump’s Federal Agents Do Their Work For Them
From opposing COVID-19 lockdowns and packing contentious school board meetings to clashing head-on with Black Lives Matter demonstrators, the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys was a constant, visible ally to Donald Trump during his first presidential term.
After Trump left office in 2021, many of the group’s top leaders ended up behind bars for their role in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Widespread reports of crippling internal infighting further fractured the movement, leaving many observers to write off the Proud Boys, assuming their era of peak influence was behind them.
But when Trump returned to the White House a year ago, and followed through on his promise to release all January 6 defendants, many speculated a full Proud Boys comeback was on the horizon. While scattered hints have emerged that the group could regain the level of activity it saw at its height, the reality is that the Trump administration’s moves to militarize U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Border Patrol, paired with its open embrace of white nationalist rhetoric, have left the Proud Boys sidelined with no clear on-the-ground role to fill. There is little motivation for rank-and-file members to risk confrontation when heavily armed federal agents aligned with the Trump administration are already doing battle with left-wing demonstrators on their behalf.
This dynamic has been on full display over the past week, after a masked federal agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, sparking a wave of anti-ICE protests that have spread across cities and small towns nationwide.
Rather than pouring into the streets to confront anti-ICE demonstrators and defend the Trump administration’s hardline immigration crackdown, the Proud Boys have been largely limited to sharing inflammatory memes online, while offering private promises of personal security to right-wing influencers who document every step of ICE’s anti-immigrant raid operations.
A WIRED analysis of hundreds of Telegram channels operated by Proud Boy chapters across the U.S., alongside channels for other far-right extremist and militia groups, found zero public calls for members to mobilize to defend ICE from the ongoing protests.
Instead of mobilization calls, channel members have shared a flood of virulently misogynistic, homophobic images, videos, and AI-generated content targeting Good and her wife. One extremism expert told WIRED that conversations on these channels have been almost giddily celebratory in response to the shooting.
Wendy Via, co-founder and president of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, explained: “They are very enthused about what's happening, because for many of them, ICE and the DHS are following what their blueprint would have been anyway. When you've got law enforcement that seems so willing to abuse their powers, why get in trouble when there’s no need?”
Between posts celebrating Good’s death, channel members have also repeatedly praised ICE’s actions in Minneapolis. This week, a member of the Cape Fear Proud Boys, a North Carolina chapter of the group, wrote in a Telegram post: “You’re an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Five and a half years after George Floyd, in the same city, you subdue a prisoner with your knee. Imagine being that based.”
There have been a handful of vague promises of on-the-ground action, however. After right-wing influencers Nick Sortor and Cam Higby claimed they were attacked while filming content in Minneapolis this week, former national Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio — who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 Capitol riot and still claims formal leadership of the group — offered to assist. On Monday, Tarrio wrote on X: “I reached out to both Nick and Cam with an offer for personal detail. Waiting for a reply. We have a great solution for both of them.”
Higby and Sortor are part of a cohort of right-wing influencers that has been churning out consistent pro-ICE propaganda from Minneapolis over recent days, content crafted to bolster the administration’s decision to flood the city with federal agents. Tarrio did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment about what type of protection he or the Proud Boys would provide to the influencers.
It should come as no surprise that groups like the Proud Boys are so openly supportive of ICE’s actions, given that the Trump administration has repeatedly sent explicit signals that it shares their ideological goals. Over the weekend, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) official X account posted a graphic urging people to join ICE, captioned: “We’ll have our home again.”
To most casual observers, the line was meaningless. But for white nationalists and far-right extremists, it carried an unmistakable, direct message. “By God We’ll Have Our Home Again” is a song set to the tune of a 19th-century sea shanty that has become a staple in white nationalist spaces, and is especially popular among Proud Boy chapters. Most members of the group immediately interpreted the DHS post as a deliberate signal directed at their movement.
“Message received,” the Cape Fear Proud Boys chapter wrote on their Telegram channel, alongside a screenshot of the DHS post and an image of a dog whistle, leaning into the coded messaging. Quoting the DHS post, Tarrio added on X: “The official track of the ProudBoys TM️.”
In an email response to WIRED’s request for comment (which did not mention Nazi propaganda at all), DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin wrote: “Calling everything you dislike ‘Nazi propaganda’ is tiresome. DHS will continue to use all tools to communicate with the American people and keep them informed on our historic effort to Make America Safe Again.” The White House did not respond to requests for comment about the messaging of the DHS post.
While the Proud Boys have not moved to actively mobilize against the anti-ICE protests, other far-right factions are leveraging the unrest to recruit new members. Most notably, Active Clubs — decentralized far-right extremist groups that wrap white nationalist ideology in a veneer of fitness culture and male bonding — have been quick to capitalize.
Ryan Sánchez, a far-right leader who has been publicly photographed giving a Nazi salute and is tied to multiple white supremacist networks as head of the group Nationalist Network, wrote on his Telegram channel: “The Left will not be allowed to regain power. If this administration fails to crush them, the young men of this country must be prepared to do it ourselves. Join your local Active Club.”
But for the vast majority of far-right militias and extremist groups, the current moment has rendered them largely redundant. Rank-and-file members seem perfectly content to sit back, observe the unrest, and post commentary online rather than take to the streets.
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