It's all hilarious*. If you don't know what the Proud Boys stand for, do read my earlier blog post and then this one and then this one**. And then note that it was a former Proud Boy who planned the fatal white supremacist march in Charlottesville in 2017.
Proud Boys are into violence, Western nationalism, and, most centrally, misogyny. Last May Tucker Carlson posed with a few Proud Boys for a picture, though it's unclear if he knew what they stand for (which is a slightly dirtier version of what Tucker himself stands for).
It's unclear what the brawl was all about or who started it. The New York Times chose to give the story one of those passive headlines (like a woman gets raped):
Fight Breaks Out Near Republican Club After Visit by Gavin McInnes, Police SayThe Daily Beast used a more active voice:
Far-Right 'Proud Boys' Kick, Punch People in New York Following Speech From LeaderTo top all this, the Republican club was vandalized the night before Gavin McInnes' speech there, probably to protest the fact that New York City Republicans want to listen to a fascist-cum-racist-cum-misogynist***. I thought those people were heard in the 1930s and responded to in the 1940s in a rather decisive manner.
But nope. The Republican club advertised McInnes as follows:
Banned from Twitter - this Godfather of the Hipster Movement has taken on and exposed the Deep State Socialists and stood up for Western Values. Join us for an unforgettable evening with one of Liberty’s Loudest Voices!
One of "Liberty's Loudest Voices?" If you read my earlier blog posts on McInnes and Proud Boys, you know that the last thing he is about is liberty for women and/or minorities. And Twitter banned the Proud Boys for being a violent extremist group.
In any case, McInnes' misogynistic views would fit right into the rules of ISIS, so there's nothing Western about them.
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* It's not hilarious in the ordinary sense of the word, of course. It's dismal and frightening and very wrong that fascism is once again rearing its ugly head. But the whole mess has a moonless night bitter humor about it. The Proud Boys preach violence and male-and-white superiority, and the opposition responds with violence.
** Another juicy quote about feminism from one of Liberty's Loudest Voices:
“I think a lot of us sort of tried it, too. When we were in college we go, ‘Oh, ok— you take the reigns,’” he said, noting that he dabbled in actual feminism (he still insists that he’s a feminist). “And then realizing that not only is it not correct that men suck, but I don’t think that the people saying it really even believe it themselves. I think they want to be dominated. I think that’s why Game of Thrones is so popular, because deep down they love ‘Winter is Coming’ and men with giant swords.” (In 2013, McInnes wrote about his own sexual reeducation: “I learned they want to be downright abused. When I stopped playing nice and began totally defiling the women I slept with, the number of them willing to sleep with me went through the roof.”)*** It's worth noting that Proud Boys accept — and have — men of color as members but they do not accept women. I still think they are racists, too.