White Nationalists prominent at “Stop the Steal” mobilization in Georgia

On Thursday, November 19, “groyper” leader Nick Fuentes rolled past the Capitol Building in Atlanta, Georgia in the armored vehicle bearing the name Infowars, the media outlet of far-right antisemitic conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. As he passed by a crowd chanting “We Want Trump!,” Fuentes exhorted those gathered to turn out “every single day.”[1]

Fuentes, like others on hand, had come to protest the hand recount of some 5 million votes that as of Thursday had former Vice President Joe Biden ahead by some 14,000 votes. On November 20, Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Governor Brian Kemp would certify that the vote had resulted in a Biden victory.[2]

Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist, had also appeared in Atlanta on Wednesday, pledging to appear every day until the big Saturday event being promoted nationally by the StoptheSteal.us. The Tea Party Patriots had initially backed the Saturday event, but appear to have pulled out because of a failure of organizers to obtain a permit. The Tea Party Patriots, however, promoted the Wednesday through Friday events at which Nick Fuentes played a central role. Both groups also promoted last weekend’s Million MAGA March, to which we will return below. Fuentes also spoke at the D.C. event, though not on the mainstage, and would speak again on Saturday in Atlanta.

Across his days in Georgia, Fuentes would mill about inside the capitol building with Alex Jones, giving interviews, and make numerous speeches outside the building in front of the full audience of protestors present. One clear point to emerged in Fuentes’ speeches at these events is that his eyes are set on the 2022 and 2024 elections and pressing efforts to push white nationalist issues in the GOP. While many in the Stop the Steal effort have focused on haranguing Democrats, and spewing misinformation about the election, Fuentes’ brand of misinformation has aggressively assailed Republicans. Excerpts from several of his Atlanta speeches make this clear.

• “The Republican Party has failed us. We know there was a fraud. We saw it on election day. There is no question about it.”[3]
• “People should remember that it’s the Republican Party that’s doing this to us. It’s not the Democrats. In a sense, it’s the Democrats because they frauded the election, but we expect that from them. It’s the Republicans that have refused to stand up. It’s Republicans in the state legislatures, in the state government, that is refusing to do anything about this. And, I think it’s Republicans that we should remember in 2022 and 2024 when we go back to the ballot box…I’ve been basically against the establishment GOP since President Trump was. We are an insurgency against not just the left, but against the entire apparatus, the entire system.”[4]
• “President Trump made the endorsements, and he did the fundraising, and he built the wall, and he made this country great again. And now where are all these damn Republicans! Where is Nikki Haley, and where’s Mitch McConnell, and where’s Marco Rubio and Dan Crenshaw. And Madison Cawthorn. They could take a stand for a lot. Madison Cawthorn can, like Israel. But they cannot stand up for the President that got them elected in the first place. It’s a disgrace!”[5]

Some two hundred protestors gathered around Fuentes broke out in chants of “America First,” and Fuentes also led them in a chant of “Stop the Masks!,” a nod to ongoing mobilizations against COVID-19-related restrictions that have been a tributary into the “Stop the Steal” efforts.[6] And Fuentes exhorted that, “if you take away our rights, and destroy our way of life, then we will shut the country down!”, leading to chants of “Shut it down!”[7]

At one point on Thursday, as Fuentes took the microphone, a subset of the crowd began chanting “Groyper, groyper!,” a reference to the movement that Fuentes helped form in late 2019 to press reactionary conservatives like Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA to adopt core white nationalist aims and push his base into the white-ist movement.[8] Fuentes attacks on the GOP are a continuation of this strategy.

While Nick Fuentes played a lead speaking role in Atlanta before Saturday, Enrique Tarrio, national leader of the racist reactionary Proud Boys, was also on hand, declaring that “We’ve all become Proud Boys.” He also led the audience in a recitation of Proud Boys’ motto, declaring to the audience, “[S]ince we’re all Proud Boys, I want you guys to repeat after me, ‘I am a western chauvinist, and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.’ We’re all Proud Boys!”[9] The audience repeated the racist mantra with him.

Proud Boys have become regular features at “Stop the Steal” events, clashing with and/or harrassing counterprotestors and others at the “Million MAGA March in Washington DC as well as events in California and Nevada.[10]

Both Fuentes and Tarrio also made clear that their efforts will continue past the election, regardless of the outcome. Fuentes exhorted, “I don’t accept Joe Biden as my president. And I won’t accept him even if he gets inaugurated on January 20^th. As far as I’m concerned they are trying to install an illegitimate regime. It will be a Biden Occupied Government, but he is not legitimate.”

For his part, Tarrio explained, “We need to keep coming out here, we’re gonna coming out here Friday, and we’re gonna come out here Saturday. And we’re gonna keep coming out until something gets fixed. And if they steal this election, we’ll be out every day.”[11]

White Nationalism and the “Million” MAGA Sideshow

Over the course of his Atlanta appearance, multiple photographs were taken of Nick Fuentes. In several of these photos, Fuentes appears alongside three individuals of particular interest – Ali Alexander, Vernon Jones, and Chandler Crump. All three had been announced as speakers on the main stage of the Million MAGA March in Washington D.C., an event that saw several thousand Trump supporters gather to protest the misperceived “theft” of the election.

On the day of the big Saturday the 21^st event in Atlanta, Ali Alexander, emcee of the main “Stop the Steal” show, would give a shout out to Fuentes and the white nationalist “groyper” would take the podium (actually a ladder) after the “official” event speakers concluded.[12]

While a rush of groups initially promoting the November 14 D.C. MAGA march included a seamless web stretching from far-right reactionaries to white nationalists, some separation remained visible the day of the event. The main stage was reserved for speakers promoted by the lead organizers and included a cluster of reactionary figures that also played lead roles in events held in key cities last promoted most prominently by StoptheSteal.US and the Tea Party Patriots – the former connected to Tea Party Express figure Amy Kremer. The closest known kin to white nationalists on the main stage was Jack Posobiec, having exhibited his flirtation with actual fascists and white nationalists.

The crowd at the DC event included a mix of the usual suspects in Trump’s organized nationalist base including members of the Oath Keepers, Qanon believers, Infowars’ head Alex Jones, Patriot Prayer, confederate flag waivers, Three Percenters, and “boogaloo bois.” Also present were members of the America Guard, an organization led by onetime racist skinhead Brien James; and National File, an organization that had announced an event featuring both Nick Fuentes and Proud Boys’ founder Gavin McInnes that coincided the “groyper”-led American First Political Action Conference. [13]

Nick Fuentes, his “gropyers” and the Proud Boys did not make it onto the main stage at the D.C. event. About 100 Proud Boys marched about before the main events. Members of the group were videoed chanting “Break out, Kyle!”, a reference to Kyle Rittenhouse, charged with felony homicide in the shooting of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August during protests over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.[14]

Some 100 supporters also gathered at a sideshow around Nick Fuentes. Among the “groypers” present at the DC event were white nationalist Patrick Casey, head of the recently disbanded American Identity Movement; Jake Lloyd, a speaker at the December 2019 Groyper Leadership Summit in Florida; Vincent James of Red Elephant, Jaden McNeil, head of America First Students at Kansas State University, and Steven Franssen.[15]

While Fuentes did not share the mainstage at the event, the Million MAGA March Twitter page, touting itself “The Official Million Maga March Twitter Account,” tweeted out excerpts from the white nationalist’s D.C. speech as well as his Georgia spewings. The group’s tweet of Fuentes’ speech in DC asserted that “The emerging conservative star was one of the best speakers of the entire march!”[16]

Follow this link to read how other white nationalists have responded to the “Stop the Steal” mobilization.

NOTES

 

[1] American Nationalist. Twitter. November 19, 2020. https://twitter.com/NationalistTV/status/1329478256886734849

[2] Wagner, John, Itkowitz, Colby and Michelle Ye Hee Lee. Georgia secretary of state issues correction, saying certification of its general election results is still under way.

Washington Post. November 20, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/11/20/joe-biden-trump-transition-live-updates/; Brumback, Kate. Georgia officials certify election results showing Biden win. Associated Press. November 20, 2020. https://apnews.com/article/georgia-certify-election-joe-biden-ea8f867d740f3d7d42d0a55c1aef9e69

[3] RT. ‘Stop the Steal’| Alex Jones leads pro-Trump rally in Atlanta. YouTube. November 19, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meX8vhurCao

[4] Gutenschwater, Brendan. Twitter. November 18, 2020. https://twitter.com/BGOnTheScene/status/1329144842719522817

[5]  Gutenschwager, Brandon. Twitter. November 19, 2020. https://twitter.com/BGOnTheScene/status/1329484792040218625

[6] Gutenschwager, Brandon. Twitter. November 19, 2020. https://twitter.com/BGOnTheScene/status/1329488008802918400; Gutenschwager, Brandon. Twitter. November 19, 2020. https://twitter.com/BGOnTheScene/status/1329491663241220102;

[7] Gutenschwager, Brandon. Twitter. November 19, 2020. https://twitter.com/BGOnTheScene/status/1329481699969863681

[8] Gutenschwager, Brandon. Twitter. November 19, 2020. https://twitter.com/BGOnTheScene/status/1329486923841286144

[9] Gutenschwager, Brandon. Twitter. November 19, 2020.  https://twitter.com/BGOnTheScene/status/1329485442165706752

[10]Aleem, Zeeshan. Violence followed the “Million MAGA March” in Washington, DC. VOX. November 15, 2020. https://www.vox.com/2020/11/15/21565938/million-maga-march-violence-protests-dc; Noyes, Dan. Violence mars Trump rally in Sacramento, Proud Boys and Antifa face off. ABC7News. November 15, 2020. https://abc7news.com/million-maga-march-trump-rally-sacramento-california-president-donald/7972098/; Bahouth, Brian. Ugly Scene at Nevada State Capitol in Wake of Trump Defeat. Sierra Valley Ally. November 8, 2020. https://sierranevadaally.org/2020/11/08/ugly-scene-at-nevada-state-capitol-in-wake-of-trump-defeat/

[11] Gutenschwager, Brandon. Twitter. November 19, 2020. https://twitter.com/BGOnTheScene/status/1329563536142503936;  Gutenschwager, Brandon. Twitter. November 18, 2020.   https://twitter.com/BGOnTheScene/status/1329152872773259265

[12] Right Side Broadcasting Network. WATCH LIVE: Stop The Steal Protest in Atlanta, GA – LIVE COVERAGE. November 21, 2020. https://rsbnetwork.com/2020/11/watch-live-stop-the-steal-protest-in-atlanta-ga-live-coverage/

[13] BBC News. Million MAGA March: Thousands of pro-Trump protestors rally in Washington DC. November 15, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54945154; Mages, Evy. Photos: Scenes from the Million MAGA March. Washingtonian. November 14, 2020. https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/11/14/photos-scenes-from-the-million-maga-march/; Slotkin, Jason and The Associate Press. Trump supporters, counter protestors clash at D.C. rally contesting Biden’s victory. MPRNews. November 14, 2020. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/11/14/npr-trump-supporters-descend-on-d-c-for-events-contesting-election-results; Mills Rodrigo, Chris. Thousands flock to DC for pro-Trump rally. The Hill. November 14, 2020. https://thehill.com/homenews/news/525988-thousands-flock-to-dc-for-pro-trump-rally’ National File. Twitter. November 14, 2020. https://twitter.com/NationalFile/status/1327654026448494592

[14] Rodriguez, Karla. Violence erupts as Proud Boys riot in DC. Revolt. November 14, 2020.  https://www.revolt.tv/news/2020/11/14/21565755/violence-erupts-as-proud-boys-riot-in-dc.

[15] One Nation. Twitter. November 15, 2020. https://twitter.com/OneNationxxx/status/1328204052593848320; Kyle Frank. Youtube. Nick Fuentes FULL BULLHORN SPEECH Washington DC MAGA Million March. November 14, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n24ggkCGZ6k&feature=youtu.be; Anti-Defamation League. Extremists and Mainstream Trump Supporters Gather for “Million Maga March.” November 15, 2020. https://www.adl.org/blog/extremists-and-mainstream-trump-supporters-gather-for-million-maga-march.

[16] Million MAGA March. Twitter. November 16, 2020. https://twitter.com/MilionMagaMarch/status/1328330480144420870; Million MAGA March. Twitter. November 18, 2020. https://twitter.com/MilionMagaMarch/status/1329137985510641666; Million MAGA March. Twitter.