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      How Trump’s Focus on Antifa Distracted Attention From the Far-Right Threat

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutVisual TimelineInside the SiegeTracking the Oath KeepersNotable ArrestsThe Global Far RightAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow Trump’s Focus on Antifa Distracted Attention From the Far-Right ThreatFederal law enforcement shifted resources last year in response to Donald Trump’s insistence that the radical left endangered the country. Meanwhile, right-wing extremism was building ominously.The outrage that President Donald J. Trump spent months stoking would later culminate in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 by loyalist supporters and right-wing extremists.Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York TimesAdam Goldman, Katie Benner and Jan. 30, 2021Updated 4:52 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — As racial justice protests erupted nationwide last year, President Donald J. Trump, struggling to find a winning campaign theme, hit on a message that he stressed over and over: The real domestic threat to the United States emanated from the radical left, even though law enforcement authorities had long since concluded it came from the far right.It was a message that was quickly embraced and amplified by his attorney general and his top homeland security officials, who translated it into a shift in criminal justice and national security priorities even as Mr. Trump was beginning to openly stoke the outrage that months later would culminate in the storming of the Capitol by right-wing extremists.Mr. Trump’s efforts to focus his administration on the antifa movement and leftist groups did not stop the Justice Department and the F.B.I. from pursuing cases of right-wing extremism. They broke up a kidnapping plot, for example, targeting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a Democrat.But the effect of his direction was nonetheless substantial, according to interviews with current and former officials, diverting key portions of the federal law enforcement and domestic security agencies at a time when the threat from the far right was building ominously.In late spring and early summer, as the racial justice demonstrations intensified, Justice Department officials began shifting federal prosecutors and F.B.I. agents from investigations into violent white supremacists to focus on cases involving rioters or anarchists, including those who might be associated with the antifa movement. One Justice Department prosecutor was sufficiently concerned about an excessive focus on antifa that the official went to the department’s independent inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, telling his office that politics might have played a part.Federal prosecutors and agents felt pressure to uncover a left-wing extremist criminal conspiracy that never materialized, according to two people who worked on Justice Department efforts to counter domestic terrorism. They were told to do so even though the F.B.I., in particular, had increasingly expressed concern about the threat from white supremacists, long the top domestic terrorism threat, and well-organized far-right extremist groups that had allied themselves with the president.White House and Justice Department officials stifled internal efforts to publicly promote concerns about the far-right threat, with aides to Mr. Trump seeking to suppress the phrase “domestic terrorism” in internal discussions, according to a former official at the Department of Homeland Security.Requests for funding to bolster the number of analysts who search social media posts for warnings of potential violent extremism were denied by top homeland security officials, limiting the department’s ability to spot developing threats like the post-Election Day anger among far-right groups over Mr. Trump’s loss.The scale and intensity of the threat developing on the right became stunningly clear on Jan. 6, when news broadcasts and social media were flooded with images of far-right militias, followers of the QAnon conspiracy movement and white supremacists storming the Capitol.Militias and other dangerous elements of the far right saw “an ally in the White House,” said Mary McCord, a former Justice Department official who teaches at Georgetown University and focuses on domestic terrorism. “That has, I think, allowed them to grow and recruit and try to mainstream their opinions, which is why I think you end up seeing what we saw” at the Capitol.Far-right and far-left groups clashing in Portland, Ore., in August. Dozens of F.B.I. employees and senior managers were sent on temporary assignments there, according to current and former law enforcement officials. Credit…David Ryder for The New York TimesA Focus on ‘Anarchists and Thugs’Mr. Trump’s focus on what he portrayed as a major threat from antifa was embraced in particular by Attorney General William P. Barr.Mr. Barr had long harbored concerns about protests and violence from the left. Soon after taking office in early 2019, he began a weekly national security briefing by asking the F.B.I. what it was doing to combat antifa, according to two people briefed on the meetings. Officials viewed his sense of the threat as exaggerated. They explained that it was not a terrorist organization, but rather a loose movement without an organization or hierarchy, and tried to correct what they described as misperceptions, according to one of the people.Still, in meetings last year with political appointees in Washington, department investigators felt pressured to find evidence that antifa adherents were conspiring to conduct coordinated terrorist attacks.When F.B.I. intelligence continued to deem white nationalists the leading domestic terrorism threats — part of what the bureau describes as racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists — prosecutors were asked to also consider information from the Department of Homeland Security that antifa and radical leftist anarchists were instead the leading threats, according to a person involved in the conversations.Mr. Barr said in a statement that “there was no ‘prioritization’” of the leftist threat, and that all violence should be condemned.“The F.B.I. already had a robust program to combat violence driven by white supremacy and nationalism,” Mr. Barr said. “I wanted there to be a comparable one for antifa and antifalike groups.”The pressure from Mr. Trump was unrelenting. After Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, testified to Congress in September that antifa was “more of an ideology or a movement than an organization,” Mr. Trump lashed out at him on Twitter, saying that the F.B.I. protected such “anarchists and thugs” and allowed them “to get away with ‘murder.’”Investigators at the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security moved quickly and forcefully to address the violence that erupted amid the summer’s racial justice protests.The demonstrations gave way to looting and rioting, including serious injuries and shootings. Over several chaotic nights in Minneapolis, rioters burned down a corridor of largely immigrant-owned businesses and set a police precinct on fire. Similar scenes played out in other cities.In late August, Michael Reinoehl, a self-professed antifa supporter, shot and killed a pro-Trump protester in Portland, Ore. The president cheered his death at the hands of the federal officers who later tried to apprehend him. “We got him,” he said.But while Mr. Trump and others saw the developments as evidence of a major assault from the left, the picture was actually more complicated.The shooting by Mr. Reinoehl, as the F.B.I. pointed out this month in an internal memo, was the first killing in more than 20 years by what the bureau classifies as an “anarchist violent extremist,” the type of threat Mr. Trump had emphasized.Over the late spring and summer, the F.B.I. opened more than 400 domestic terrorism investigations, including about 40 cases into possible antifa adherents and 40 into the boogaloo, a right-wing movement seeking to start a civil war, along with investigations into white supremacists suspected of menacing protesters, according to F.B.I. data and a former Justice Department official. Even among those movements, career prosecutors saw the boogaloo as the gravest threat.A group affiliated with the boogaloo, a loosely organized far-right movement preparing for a civil war, in Lansing, Mich., in October.Credit…Seth Herald/Getty ImagesMembers of violent militias began to go to protests as self-appointed police forces, sometimes saying that they had heeded Mr. Trump’s call. They attended Republican events as self-described security forces. Still, Justice Department leadership was adamant that terrorism investigators focus on antifa as the demonstrations spread, according to an official who worked on the inquiries.The small cadre of intelligence analysts inside the department’s counterterrorism section were pulled into the effort, writing twice daily reports. National security prosecutors staffed command posts at the F.B.I. to deal with the protests and associated violence and property crimes, and to help protect statues and monuments seen as potential targets.All of this was a strain on the counterterrorism section, which has only a few dozen prosecutors and like other parts of the department was reeling from the coronavirus. A top F.B.I. domestic terrorism chief also expressed concern to Justice Department officials over the summer about the diversion of resources.The counterterrorism section at the time was working with prosecutors and agents around the country on cases involving people affiliated with the Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, other militia members and violent white supremacists. In some parts of the country, agents who had been investigating violent white supremacists pivoted to investigate anarchists and others involved in the rioting, struggling in certain cases to find any conspiracy or other federal charges to bring against them.Around the same time, the F.B.I. was tracking worrisome threats emanating from the far right. Agents in Michigan monitoring members of a violent antigovernment militia called Wolverine Watchmen received intelligence in June that the men planned to recruit more members and kidnap state governors, according to court documents.After six members of the group were charged in October with plotting to abduct Ms. Whitmer, one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal opponents, the president insulted her and reiterated that the left posed the true threat. “She calls me a White Supremacist — while Biden and Democrats refuse to condemn Antifa, Anarchists, Looters and Mobs that burn down Democrat run cities,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter.Dozens of F.B.I. employees and senior managers were sent on temporary assignments to Portland — including the head of the Tampa field office, who was an expert in Islamic terrorism, according to current and former law enforcement officials — where left-leaning protests had intensified since tactical federal teams arrived. Some F.B.I. agents and Justice Department officials expressed concern that the Portland work was a drain on the bureau’s effort to combat what they viewed as the more lethal strains of domestic extremism. The bureau had about 1,000 domestic terrorism cases under investigation at the time, and only several hundred agents in the field assigned to them. The Homeland Security Department even sent agents to Portland who were usually assigned to investigate drug cartels at the border.Mr. Barr also formed a task force run by trusted U.S. attorneys in Texas and New Jersey to prosecute antigovernment extremists. Terrorism prosecutors working on the investigations arising from the summer’s violence were not told beforehand of Mr. Barr’s decision. They questioned the rationale behind the task force because it seemed to duplicate their work and could create confusion, according to two people familiar with their pushback.Ultimately, the federal response to last year’s protests elicited a mixed bag. Federal prosecutors nationwide charged more than 200 people with crimes, including some who self-identified with antifa.But the F.B.I. also charged adherents of the boogaloo, including an Air Force sergeant suspected of murdering a federal officer and trying to kill another in California. The sergeant had previously been charged with the shooting death of a sheriff’s deputy in Santa Cruz County during a gun battle on June 6 that led to his arrest.As attorney general, William P. Barr played up the threat from antifa, a loose collection of leftist agitators, even as Justice Department and F.B.I. officials saw a greater threat from the far right.Credit…for The New York TimesThe Homeland ThreatDomestic terrorism has long been a politically sensitive issue for the Department of Homeland Security.A warning in a 2009 homeland security report that military veterans returning from combat could be vulnerable for recruitment by terrorist groups or extremists prompted backlash from conservatives, forcing the homeland security secretary at the time, Janet Napolitano, to apologize and retract the report. An edited version was eventually issued, but the lesson about the political risks of highlighting far-right extremism lingered inside the department.“They overhype the threat of the far left at the expense of far-right extremism,” said Daryl Johnson, a former senior analyst at the department who wrote the 2009 report.Like Mr. Barr, Mr. Trump’s acting homeland security secretary, Chad F. Wolf, took his lead from the White House and emphasized the threat from antifa. At one point, Mr. Wolf formed a task force that deployed tactical agents to protect statues and monuments.Mr. Wolf denied that the administration’s response to the violence at racial justice protests came at the cost of efforts to combat far-right violence, noting that the agency affirmed the rising threat of white supremacy in an assessment in 2019..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1amoy78{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1amoy78{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1amoy78:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.“You could argue the reverse. The fact we were focused on white supremacist extremists in late 2019, early ’20, we missed the antifa stuff coming up,” Mr. Wolf said. “One could always go back and say, ‘You focused on this at the expense of that.’ I would say we focused on things happening in real time.”Mr. Trump said in May that he intended to designate antifa a domestic terrorist organization. National Security Council staff members, including Andrew Veprek, an ally of Stephen Miller who is now at the State Department, asked homeland security officials for evidence to justify such a designation. They sought information about possible ties between antifa and foreign entities; federal law defines domestic terrorism but the statute does not carry any criminal penalties, and designations of terrorist organizations are limited to foreign groups.In fact, the F.B.I. had seen troubling evidence of white supremacists in the United States with foreign ties, including one group that agents believe was being directed by an American living in Russia. The group, called the Base, was such a severe threat that the F.B.I. briefed Mr. Barr about it.Homeland security officials balked at helping designate antifa as a terrorist organization, and the effort failed.Officials in the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis also expressed concern after Mr. Wolf questioned one of their reports that labeled the boogaloo as “far right” in describing the shooting death of the federal officer in which the suspect, an Air Force sergeant, was linked to the movement. Asked about his response, Mr. Wolf said he was only trying to gain information, not alter reports.Under the Trump administration, analysts in the intelligence and analysis office had even more incentive to produce reports on threats outside of right-wing extremism, said Elizabeth Neumann, the former assistant homeland security secretary for counterterrorism and threat prevention under Mr. Trump.Many viewed their performance reviews as tied to whether they produced reports that aligned with the Trump administration’s priorities, including Mexican cartel organizations, foreign terrorism and antifa, rather than reports on militias and white supremacists. The number of warnings about all types of extremists in the second half of last year eventually dwindled, according to current and former officials.“You can read the tea leaves and say domestic terrorism isn’t going to be our priority,” Ms. Neumann said.“The culture absorbs those messages they hear the president speak or tweet,” she said, adding that some White House officials even cautioned against using the phrase “domestic terrorism.”Last spring, Brian Murphy, then the homeland security intelligence chief, requested $14 million to bolster training and increase staff to analyze social media for extremist threats, given that online forums had become a prime recruiting and organizing ground. Mr. Wolf’s deputy, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, rejected the request, as well as an appeal for $8 million, officials said.Mr. Cuccinelli said in a statement that requests for additional funding would have come at the expense of other parts of the agency. He added that he had been working to shift resources from other parts of the department to expand training for the intelligence branch.Mr. Murphy had filed a whistle-blower complaint in September that prompted an outcry. He accused department leaders of ordering him to modify intelligence assessments to make the threat of white supremacy “appear less severe” and include information on violent “left-wing” groups and antifa. Mr. Wolf and Mr. Cuccinelli have denied the allegations, and after congressional backlash, they eventually released a report in October identifying white supremacy as the “most persistent and lethal threat” in the United States.As he campaigned for re-election, Mr. Trump focused relentlessly on antifa, which at one point he sought to designate as a terrorist organization.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesAntifa Until the EndCampaigning for re-election, Mr. Trump spent the summer blaming rioting and violence on Democratic governors and mayors and warning about a “left-wing cultural revolution.”Armed far-right militia groups started appearing at racial justice protests and demonstrations about the outcome of the election. Extremists groups like the Proud Boys marched in Washington in December, clashing with anti-Trump protesters in altercations that included stabbings. The Homeland Security Department’s intelligence branch issued an assessment on Dec. 30 highlighting the potential for white supremacists to carry out “mass casualty” attacks, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times.But there was no specific mention of armed groups targeting the Capitol, despite plenty of indicators online. The acting chief of the Capitol Police, Yogananda D. Pittman, later said that the department knew militias and white supremacists would be coming and “that there was a strong potential for violence and that Congress was the target.”In the days before Jan. 6, the Secret Service was told by homeland security officials to expect only an “elevated threat environment,” according to people familiar with the meeting.The doors to the House chamber after the attack on the Capitol. Trump administration officials did not foresee the extent of the threat from the far right.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe Trump administration, however, continued to play up the threat of antifa. The night before the assault on the Capitol, the White House issued a memo seeking to bar any foreigners affiliated with antifa from entering the country and, once again, try to determine if the movement could be classified as a terrorist organization.When the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, some shouted explicit chants against antifa. Others were captured on video yelling, “We were invited by the president of the United States.”Mike Baker and John Eligon contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Extremists Emboldened by Capitol Attack Pose Rising Threat, Homeland Security Says

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The New WashingtonliveLatest UpdatesBiden’s Climate AmbitionsBiden’s CabinetPandemic ResponseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyExtremists Emboldened by Capitol Attack Pose Rising Threat, Homeland Security SaysThe warning was a notable departure for a Department of Homeland Security accused of being reluctant during the Trump administration to publish intelligence reports or public warnings about the dangers posed by extremists and white supremacist groups.National Guard troops on Wednesday at the Capitol, which they have patrolled since after the attack there on Jan. 6.Credit…Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesZolan Kanno-Youngs and Jan. 27, 2021Updated 9:46 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Warning that the deadly rampage of the Capitol this month may not be an isolated episode, the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday said publicly for the first time that the United States faced a growing threat from “violent domestic extremists” emboldened by the attack.The department’s terrorism alert did not name specific groups that might be behind any future attacks, but it made clear that their motivation would include anger over “the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives,” a clear reference to the accusations made by President Donald J. Trump and echoed by right-wing groups that the 2020 election was stolen.“D.H.S. is concerned these same drivers to violence will remain through early 2021,” the department said.The Department of Homeland Security does not have information indicating a “specific, credible plot,” according to a statement from the agency. The alert issued was categorized as one warning of developing trends in terrorism, rather than a notice of an imminent attack.But an intelligence official involved in drafting Wednesday’s bulletin said the decision to issue the report was driven by the department’s conclusion that Mr. Biden’s peaceful inauguration last week could create a false sense of security because “the intent to engage in violence has not gone away” among extremists angered by the outcome of the presidential election.The warning contained in a “National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin” was a notable departure for a Department of Homeland Security accused of being reluctant during the Trump administration to publish intelligence reports or public warnings about the dangers posed by domestic extremists and white supremacist groups for fear of angering Mr. Trump, according to current and former homeland security officials. Starting with the deadly extremist protest in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, when Mr. Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides,” he played down any danger posed by extremist groups. And when racial justice protests erupted nationwide last year, his consistent message was that it was the so-called radical left that was to blame for the violence and destruction that had punctuated the demonstrations.Even after the Department of Homeland Security in September 2019 singled out white supremacists as a leading domestic terrorism threat, analysts and intelligence officials said their warnings were watered down, delayed or both. Former officials in the Trump administration have even said that White House officials sought to suppress the phrase “domestic terrorism.”As recently as last September, a former top intelligence official with the department, Brian Murphy, filed a whistle-blower complaint accusing department leaders, including the acting secretary, Chad F. Wolf, and his deputy, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, of ordering him to modify intelligence assessments to make the threat of white supremacy “appear less severe” and include information on left-wing groups to align with Mr. Trump’s messaging.Mr. Wolf and Mr. Cuccinelli denied the accusations, and after a congressional backlash, released an annual threat assessment in October that acknowledged that violent white supremacy was the “most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland.”The intelligence official involved with the bulletin, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss its findings, added that the public warning should have been issued as early as November, when Mr. Trump was making an escalating series of false accusations about the election, and that far-right groups continued to be galvanized by such false statements.But at the time, Mr. Trump was also seeking to dismiss department officials whom he regarded as disloyal, including Christopher Krebs, the chief of its cybersecurity agency, after a committee overseeing the election declared it had been “the most secure in American history.” The agency failed to issue a warning to state and local agencies warning of specific violence aimed at the Capitol before the attack on Jan. 6.Members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group, demonstrating last year in Washington.Credit…Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesThe report listed a broad range of grievances across the political spectrum, including “anger over Covid-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, and police use of force.” And left-wing groups have not been silent: After the inauguration of Mr. Biden, some demonstrators in Portland, Ore., shattered windows and targeted a federal building with graffiti.The New WashingtonLive UpdatesUpdated Jan. 27, 2021, 8:53 p.m. ETWhitmer pleads with Michigan lawmakers to find common ground amid the pandemic.The Biden administration is reviewing arms sales to the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia that were approved by Trump.Two officers who defended the Capitol have died by suicide, police chief says.But the bulletin’s specific references to the Jan. 6 attack and a mass shooting in El Paso that targeted Hispanics made clear that the most lethal current threat is from the racist extremist groups.Until now, the closest federal law enforcement had come to that conclusion since the attack at the Capitol was in a joint bulletin issued this month by law enforcement agencies, warning that extremists aiming to start a race war “may exploit the aftermath of the Capitol breach by conducting attacks to destabilize and force a climactic conflict in the United States,” according to a copy of the bulletin obtained by The New York Times.But that warning came in a private channel to law enforcement agencies. Terrorism warnings issued to the public like the bulletin on Wednesday are rare: The most recent came a year ago during a period of tension with Iran after the American military’s killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.The bulletins issued by the Department of Homeland Security, which was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, have typically identified foreign terrorist threats. Federal authorities have for years lagged on warnings about the threat of terrorism from within United States borders, perpetrated by American citizens.“There’s value in soliciting the public’s assistance in identifying and alerting authorities about suspicious activity,” said Brian Harrell, a former assistant secretary for homeland security in the Trump administration. “The watchful public will always be the best ‘eyes and ears’ for law enforcement.”Asked during a briefing about the motivation for the new terrorism bulletin, Michael Chertoff, a former secretary of homeland security under President George W. Bush, said, “In my view, it is domestic terrorism mounted by right-wing extremists and neo-Nazi groups.” He added, “We have to be candid and face what the real risk is.”Such candor has long been an exception.When a warning in a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report, early in the Obama administration, that military veterans returning from combat could be vulnerable to recruitment by terrorist groups or extremists prompted a backlash from conservatives, the homeland security secretary at the time, Janet Napolitano, was forced to apologize.The report was retracted and an edited version was eventually reissued.“It was an early lesson in how fraught dealing with these issues can be, but it turns out the report itself and the substance of the report was quite prescient,” Ms. Napolitano said in an interview. “What we saw two weeks ago is what I think we were seeing in 2009, but it has only grown and it seems to have exploded in the last four years.”This week, Mr. Biden ordered a comprehensive assessment of the threat of domestic violent extremism. During his confirmation hearing, the president’s pick for homeland security secretary, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, said he would empower the department’s intelligence branch, which has long struggled to distinguish its assessments from the F.B.I.The department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis is responsible for gathering information on emerging threats and sharing it with state authorities to bolster coordination among federal and local law enforcement.“The truth is what has to come out of D.H.S,” Mr. Chertoff said. “Not playing patty cake with political agendas.”Mike Baker More

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      ‘A Total Failure’: The Proud Boys Now Mock Trump

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutLatest UpdatesInside the SiegeVisual TimelineNotable ArrestsCapitol Police in CrisisAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘A Total Failure’: The Proud Boys Now Mock TrumpMembers of the far-right group, who were among Donald Trump’s staunchest fans, are calling him “weak” as more of them were charged for storming the U.S. Capitol.Members of the Proud Boys, who have engaged in political violence, at a rally in Portland, Ore., in September.Credit…Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi for The New York TimesSheera Frenkel and Jan. 20, 2021Updated 5:49 p.m. ETAfter the presidential election last year, the Proud Boys, a far-right group, declared its undying loyalty to President Trump.In a Nov. 8 post in a private channel of the messaging app Telegram, the group urged its followers to attend protests against an election that it said had been fraudulently stolen from Mr. Trump. “Hail Emperor Trump,” the Proud Boys wrote.But by this week, the group’s attitude toward Mr. Trump had changed. “Trump will go down as a total failure,” the Proud Boys said in the same Telegram channel on Monday.As Mr. Trump departed the White House on Wednesday, the Proud Boys, once among his staunchest supporters, have also started leaving his side. In dozens of conversations on social media sites like Gab and Telegram, members of the group have begun calling Mr. Trump a “shill” and “extraordinarily weak,” according to messages reviewed by The New York Times. They have also urged supporters to stop attending rallies and protests held for Mr. Trump or the Republican Party.The comments are a startling turn for the Proud Boys, which for years had backed Mr. Trump and promoted political violence. Led by Enrique Tarrio, many of its thousands of members were such die-hard fans of Mr. Trump that they offered to serve as his private militia and celebrated after he told them in a presidential debate last year to “stand back and stand by.” On Jan. 6, some Proud Boys members stormed the U.S. Capitol.But since then, discontent with Mr. Trump, who later condemned the violence, has boiled over. On social media, Proud Boys participants have complained about his willingness to leave office and said his disavowal of the Capitol rampage was an act of betrayal. And Mr. Trump, cut off on Facebook and Twitter, has been unable to talk directly to them to soothe their concerns or issue new rallying cries.The Proud Boys’ anger toward Mr. Trump has heightened after he did nothing to help those in the group who face legal action for the Capitol violence. On Wednesday, a Proud Boy leader, Joseph Biggs, 37, was arrested in Florida and charged with unlawful entry and corruptly obstructing an official proceeding in the riot. At least four other members of the group also face charges stemming from the attack.“When Trump told them that if he left office, America would fall into an abyss, they believed him,” Arieh Kovler, a political consultant and independent researcher in Israel who studies the far right, said of the Proud Boys. “Now that he has left office, they believe he has both surrendered and failed to do his patriotic duty.”The shift raises questions about the strength of the support for Mr. Trump and suggests that pockets of his fan base are fracturing. Many of Mr. Trump’s fans still falsely believe he was deprived of office, but other far-right groups such as the Oath Keepers, America First and the Three Percenters have also started criticizing him in private Telegram channels, according to a review of messages.Last week, Nicholas Fuentes, the leader of America First, wrote in his Telegram channel that Mr. Trump’s response to the Capitol rampage was “very weak and flaccid” and added, “Not the same guy that ran in 2015.”On Wednesday, the Proud Boys Telegram group welcomed President Biden to office. “At least the incoming administration is honest about their intentions,” the group wrote.Mr. Kovler said the activity showed that groups that had coalesced around Mr. Trump were now trying to figure out their future direction. By losing his ability to post on Twitter and Facebook, Mr. Trump had also become less useful to the far-right groups, who counted on him to raise their profile on a national stage, Mr. Kovler said.Mr. Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment.Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, led a contingent of the group in Washington last month.Credit…Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesThe Proud Boys were founded in 2016 as a club for men by Gavin McInnes, who also was a founder of the online publication Vice. Describing themselves as “Western chauvinists,” the group attracted people who appeared eager to engage in violence and who frequently espoused anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic views. The group had supported Mr. Trump since he assumed office.The change toward Mr. Trump happened slowly. After November’s election, the group’s private Telegram channels, Gab pages and posts on the alternative social networking site Parler were filled with calls to keep the faith with the president. Many Proud Boys, echoing Mr. Trump’s falsehoods, said the election had been rigged, according to a review of messages.The Proud Boys urged their members to attend “Stop the Steal” rallies. One Nov. 23 message on a Proud Boys Telegram page read, “No Trump, no peace.” The message linked to information about a rally in front of the governor’s home in Georgia.As Mr. Trump’s legal team battled the election result with lawsuits, the Proud Boys closely followed the court cases and appeals in different states, posting frequent links in their Telegram channels to news reports.But when Mr. Trump’s legal efforts failed, the Proud Boys called for him on social media to use his presidential powers to stay in office. Some urged him to declare martial law or take control by force. In the last two weeks of December, they pushed Mr. Trump in their protests and on social media to “Cross the Rubicon.”“They wanted to arm themselves and start a second civil war and take down the government on Trump’s behalf,” said Marc-André Argentino, a researcher who studies the far right and a Ph.D. candidate at Concordia University. “But ultimately, he couldn’t be the authoritarian they wanted him to be.”Then came the week of the Capitol storming. On Jan. 4, Mr. Tarrio was arrested by the Metropolitan Police on suspicion of burning a Black Lives Matter banner torn from a Black church in Washington. He was thrown out of the city by a judge the next day..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1cs27wo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1cs27wo{padding:20px;}}.css-1cs27wo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.But nearly 100 other Proud Boys, who had been encouraged by leaders like Mr. Biggs, remained in Washington. According to court papers, Mr. Biggs told members to eschew their typical black-and-yellow polo shirts and instead go “incognito” and move about the city in “smaller teams.”On the day of the riot, Mr. Biggs was captured in a video marching with a large group of Proud Boys toward the Capitol, chanting slogans like, “Whose streets? Our streets.”Though prosecutors said Mr. Biggs was not among the first to break into the Capitol, they said he admitted to entering the building for a brief time. They also said he appeared to wear a walkie-talkie-style device on his chest, suggesting he was communicating with others during the incursion.In an interview with The Times hours after the attack, Mr. Biggs said he and other Proud Boys arrived at the Capitol complex around 1 p.m. when the crowd in front of them surged and the mood grew violent. “It literally happened in seconds,” he said.Prosecutors have also charged Dominic Pezzola, a Proud Boy from Rochester and a former Marine; Nicholas Ochs, founder of the Proud Boys’ Hawaii chapter; and Nicholas DeCarlo, who runs a news outfit called Murder the Media, which is associated with the group.After the violence, the Proud Boys expected Mr. Trump — who had earlier told his supporters to “fight much harder” against “bad people” — to champion the mob, according to their social media messages. Instead, Mr. Trump began distancing himself from his remarks and released a video on Jan. 8 denouncing the violence.The disappointment was immediately palpable. One Proud Boys Telegram channel posted: “It really is important for us all to see how much Trump betrayed his supporters this week. We are nationalists 1st and always. Trump was just a man and as it turns out an extraordinarily weak one at the end.”Some Proud Boys became furious that Mr. Trump, who was impeached for inciting the insurrection, did not appear interested in issuing presidential pardons for their members who were arrested. In a Telegram post on Friday, they accused Mr. Trump of “instigating” the events at the Capitol, adding that he then “washed his hands of it.”“They thought they had his support and that, ultimately, Trump would come through for them, including with a pardon if they should need it,” said Jared Holt, a visiting research fellow at the Atlantic Council’s DFR Lab. “Now they realize they went too far in the riots.”Some Proud Boys now say in online posts that the group should “go dark” and retreat from political life by cutting its affiliation to any political party. They are encouraging one another to focus their energies on secessionist movements and local protests.“To all demoralized Trump supporters: There is hope,” read one message in a Proud Boys Telegram channel on Wednesday. “There is an alternative. Abandon the GOP and the Dems.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Why Rage Over the 2020 Election Could Last Well Past Trump

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhy Rage Over the 2020 Election Could Last Well Past TrumpThe vast majority of Americans do not approve of the riot at the Capitol. But experts warn that the widespread belief there was election fraud, while false, could have dangerous, lasting effects.Polls indicate that only a small fraction of Americans approved of the riot in Washington last week. Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York TimesJan. 18, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETWASHINGTON — For many Trump supporters, the inauguration of Joseph R. Biden Jr. this week will be a signal that it is time to move on. The president had four years, but Mr. Biden won, and that is that.But for a certain slice of the 74 million Americans who voted for President Trump, the events of the past two weeks — the five deaths, including of a Capitol Police officer, the arrests that have followed, and the removal of Mr. Trump and right-wing extremists from tech platforms — have not had a chastening effect.On the contrary, interviews in recent days show that their anger and paranoia have only deepened, suggesting that even after Mr. Trump leaves the White House, an embrace of conspiracy theories and rage about the 2020 election will live on, not just among extremist groups but among many Americans.“I can’t just sit back and say, ‘OK, I’ll just go back to watching football,’” said Daniel Scheerer, 43, a fuel truck driver in Grand Junction, Colo., who went to the rally in Washington last week, but said he did not go inside the Capitol and had nothing to do with those who did. He said he did not condone those who were violent, but believed that the news media has “totally skewed” the event, obscuring what he sees as the real story of the day — the people’s protest against election fraud.“If we tolerate a fraudulent election, I believe we cease to have a republic,” he said. “We turn into a totalitarian state.”Asked what would happen after Mr. Biden took office, Mr. Scheerer said: “That’s where every person has to soul search.”Trump campaign billboards displayed along Texas State Highway 71 near La Grange, Texas, on Election Day. Credit…Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesHe continued: “This just isn’t like a candidate that I didn’t want, but he won fair and square. There’s something different happening here. I believe it needs to be resisted and fought against.”Mr. Scheerer said he was not advocating violence, nor was he part of any group that was. But he echoed the views of many who supported the events in Washington last week: A fervent belief that something bad was about to happen, and an instinct to fight against it.Polls indicate that only a small fraction of Americans approved of the riot in Washington last week. A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 8 percent of adults and 15 percent of Republicans support “the actions of people who stormed the U.S. Capitol last week to protest Biden’s election as president.” That is far from most voters, but enough to show that the belief in a stolen election has entered the American bloodstream and will not be easy to stop.“It’s a dangerous situation,” said Lucan Way, a political scientist at the University of Toronto who writes about authoritarian regimes. “The ‘election was stolen’ narrative has become part of the political landscape.”The country’s political divide is no longer a disagreement over issues like guns and abortion but a fundamental difference in how people see reality. That, in turn, is driving more extremist beliefs. This shift has been years in the making, but it went into hyper-speed after the Nov. 3 election as Mr. Trump and many in his party encouraged Americans, despite all the evidence to the contrary, to believe the results were fraudulent. The belief is still common among Republicans: A Quinnipiac poll published Monday found that 73 percent still falsely believe there was widespread voter fraud.Now, with Mr. Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday and so many Americans enraged about the election, state capitals and Washington are on high alert, with soldiers and security perimeters, bracing for further acts of violence.“Polarization is not the problem anymore,” said Lilliana Mason, a political psychologist at the University of Maryland. “Now it’s the threat to democracy.”When Professor Mason began surveying people in 2017 about their tolerance for political violence for a book on partisanship, she did not expect to find much. Partisanship was always seen as an inert, harmless thing, she said, a way to get people interested in the otherwise boring topic of politics.She was wrong. She and her co-author, Nathan Kalmoe, found that the share of Americans who say it is “at least a little bit justified” to engage in violence for political reasons has doubled in three years, rising to 20 percent after the election, from 10 percent in 2017. The trend was the same for both Republicans and Democrats. But the election was a catalyzing event: The Republicans who said they condoned violence became more approving after it, Professor Mason said. Democrats stayed about the same.State capitals and Washington are on high alert, with soldiers and security perimeters, bracing for further acts of violence.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesProfessor Mason said she worried that more violence and attacks on elected leaders and state Capitols could be coming, saying the country could be in for a period like the Troubles, the conflict in Northern Ireland in which sectarian violence kept the region unstable for 30 years.In interviews with Mr. Trump’s more fervent supporters, people expressed a pattern of falsehoods and fears about the coming Biden administration. As events like the riot have raced ahead, so have conspiracy theories explaining them. They have blossomed in the exhausting monotony of coronavirus lockdowns.Theda Kasner, 83, a retired medical worker from Marshfield, Wis., who was originally interviewed for a New York Times polling story before the election, has been in an R.V. park in Weslaco, Texas, near the border with Mexico, since December. She is spending the winter there with her husband, for the sun and the beaches nearby. But the coronavirus is roaring through, and this week, their R.V. park went on lockdown.“I told my husband today, I said ‘I’m going stir crazy,’” she said. “We are practically quarantined in our units.”She has been spending lots of time in her motor home reading books and watching videos. One featured rousing, emotional music and footage of Mr. Trump and crowds of his supporters, with a voice talking darkly about a looming confrontation. It ended with the Lord’s Prayer and the date Jan. 20, 2021, flashing on the screen. Another, 48 minutes long, was of Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, an inventor, testifying before the Georgia State Senate about election fraud. She and her husband watch Newsmax TV, a right-wing network, in the evenings.When asked about the violence at the riot, Ms. Kasner repeated the common conspiracy theory that antifa had infiltrated the crowd. These days, she is finding herself increasingly confused in a sea of information, much of it false.She had heard on a video she was sent on Facebook that in the Biden administration, children could be taken away from their parents. “I am in a total state of, I don’t know what is happening,” Ms. Kasner said.A supporter of President Trump during the vote count at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia in November.Credit…Victor J. Blue for The New York Times“I simply cannot fathom what my country is becoming,” she said, saying that she had been sitting in her home in tears. For Mr. Scheerer, the fuel truck driver in Colorado, the multiple catastrophes of the past year — the coronavirus, the economic disruption that came with it, the political fear across the country — all fused into a kind of looming threat. The lockdowns infuriated him. He sees mask mandates not as public health but public control. Both, he believed, were signs of a coming tyranny. He left a truck-driving job he liked when, by his account, his boss told him he had to wear a mask or leave.Then came the election. On Jan. 6, he arrived in Washington for the rally to protest the results. Afterward, when pressed on how he felt about the event given the number of white supremacists in the riot, he said that they were only a fraction of the people there. Anyway, he said, their presence was insignificant compared the broader issue of fraud. “It’s way more than just being some kind of a Trump fanatic,” he said. He said he sees himself as “a guy up on the wall of a city seeing the enemy coming, and ringing the alarm bell.”Force he said, is only a last resort.“Are you OK with internment camps if you refuse to wear a mask or take a vaccination?” he asked. “I believe in a world where force has to be used to stop evil or the wrong act.”The inauguration stage in front of the U.S. Capitol Building.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times In western North Carolina, Kevin Haag, a retired landscaper who was at the Capitol last week but did not go inside, said people in his conservative community have grown increasingly alarmed about what has happened in the days since. His electric power company, Duke Energy, has announced it would pause donations for Republicans who voted against certifying the election results. It all feels like a vast piling on against Trump supporters, he said.To top it off, the Senate, the House and the White House now belong to Democrats.“Now it’s pretty scary, people are alarmed, they own it all now,” said Mr. Haag, who was first quoted in a Times story about the December rally in Washington for Mr. Trump. Mr. Haag, who is 67, is also a member of his local town council.In a telephone conversation this week, he said he is part of a group called the Armed Patriots, people from his area whose purpose, he said, is to protect the community. On Tuesday night, the group met, he said, and invited the public for a gun instruction session with two experts who talked about how to use an assault rifle. Sixty people attended, he said, including women.They also held a raffle of a gun to raise money for a website, he said, “because they are taking down our communications.”The meeting, he said, “was to educate and to relieve fear.”Mr. Haag insisted that the group was not a militia.“We are not here to take over the country,” he said. “If that’s what you are here for, we are not your group. We are here to protect our citizens and to stand up for our country.”He said he was still hoping that Mr. Trump would be the one to be inaugurated this week. But even if Mr. Trump did not succeed, the movement, he said, would continue.“It’s not about Trump, he was just championing the cause,” he said. “We don’t have Trump around right now, and we are picking up the ball and running with it ourselves.”Kitty Bennett contributed research.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      La historia de un radical: trabajé con uno de los asaltantes del Capitolio

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutLatest UpdatesInside the SiegeVisual TimelineNotable ArrestsIncitement to Riot?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Media EquationLa historia de un radical: trabajé con uno de los asaltantes del CapitolioEn BuzzFeed, nos enfocábamos en realizar contenidos virales para las redes sociales. Un joven empleado aprendió esa noción y la aplicó a la extrema derecha.Simpatizantes del presidente Trump en el Capitolio, en Washington, D. C., el miércoles 6 de enero.Credit…Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA vía Shutterstock12 de enero de 2021 a las 05:00 ETRead in EnglishEncajaba tan bien como cualquier otro empleado en nuestro estudio de Los Ángeles, un lugar lleno de inadaptados ambiciosos con dones inusuales. Sabían cómo crear los videos que la gente quería ver en internet.Su verdadero nombre era Anthime Joseph Gionet, aunque prefería otros. Su valor para BuzzFeed era claro: hacía cualquier cosa por Vine, la plataforma de videos cortos que tuvo un breve auge cultural antes de ser aplastada por Instagram y Snapchat en 2017.Una vez se echó un galón de leche en la cara y el video atrajo millones de visitas, cuando la mayoría de las acrobacias inofensivas divertían a millones de espectadores estadounidenses en esa plataforma.En ese sentido, era natural que estuviera en BuzzFeed cuando llegó en la primavera de 2015, donde yo era el editor en jefe y me encargaba de supervisar el sitio web. Gionet fue contratado para manejar la cuenta de Vine de nuestra sección de videos, y su trabajo consistía principalmente en editar videos tontos y divertidos de hasta seis segundos que producían sus colegas. Al cabo de unos meses, también se hizo cargo de una cuenta de Twitter de BuzzFeed, en la que aprovechó su intuición sobre qué tipo de video compartiría la gente.En esos días, éramos mejores que nadie en la creación de contenido para las redes sociales, sobre todo listas, concursos y videos cortos, pero ocasionalmente también hacíamos espectaculares transmisiones en vivo, la más famosa fue una en la que dos de mis colegas hicieron estallar una sandía llenándola de ligas una por una.Así que el lenguaje que escuché de Gionet, ahora de 33 años, en su “transmisión en vivo” el miércoles pasado me resultó familiar. “Tenemos más de 10.000 personas en vivo que nos observan. ¡Vamos!”, dijo con entusiasmo. “Presionen el botón de seguir. Les agradezco, chicos”.Gionet se encontraba dentro de la oficina del senador por Oregón Jeff Merkley, que estaba en ruinas, transmitiendo desde una de las pocas plataformas que aún no lo habían suspendido, junto con otros simpatizantes de Trump que jugaban con el auricular del teléfono y se subían a los muebles. Parecía una conclusión apropiada para su reciente carrera que algunos podrían considerar como troleo o bromas por internet, pero que probablemente se describe mejor como violencia performativa.Anthime Joseph Gionet en una escena de su transmisión en vivo, el miércoles pasado.Credit…LiveLeakDespués de ver a Gionet, llamé a algunos de mis antiguos colegas, que lo recordaron con una mezcla de perplejidad y repulsión. Era sensible y casi se mostraba desesperado por ser aceptado, dijeron. Una vez se molestó mucho cuando alguien se burló de su bigote grueso rubio y su corte de cabello en mullet. En ese entonces, dos de sus amigos más cercanos de la oficina tenían orígenes étnicos e identidades de género diferentes a la suya, y a veces se unían por un sentimiento de ser marginados. Uno de esos amigos lo recordaba como un personaje triste que no expresaba realmente sus opiniones políticas más allá de la cultura ampliamente adolescente e insensible de Vine, y me dijo que estaba obsesionado con su infancia solitaria en Alaska. Según tres de ellos, parecía que le faltaba algo, que estaba vacío por dentro.A medida que avanzaban las elecciones de 2016, empezó a coquetear con una personalidad política. Primero puso un retrato de Bernie Sanders en su escritorio, dijeron dos excolegas. Luego comenzó a usar gorras de MAGA en la oficina, lo que sorprendió a sus compañeros de trabajo más progresistas, aunque eran bastante apolíticos. En ese entonces algunas personas todavía pensaban que la extrema derecha podría ser “irónica”.Cuando, meses después, dejó BuzzFeed para trabajar como el “coordinador de las giras políticas” de Milo Yiannopoulos, un favorito de la “extrema derecha” racista y antisemita, sus colegas se impresionaron momentáneamente. Luego, revisaron la cuenta de Twitter de Gionet, donde sus declaraciones cada vez más viles le estaban consiguiendo retuits de figuras de la extrema derecha, y se dieron cuenta de que no deberían haberse sorprendido.Sin embargo, no está claro en qué es lo que cree Gionet, si es que cree algo. Y realmente, no estoy seguro de que me importe.Este no es un perfil compasivo de un joven que se ha equivocado. No puedo tener mucha compasión por un tipo que, antes de atacar su Capitolio, pasaba el rato disparando algún tipo de sustancia irritante embotellada (lo llamaba “espray de contenido”) a los ojos de gente inocente para obtener vistas en YouTube y gritándoles a los dependientes de las tiendas que le pedían que usara cubrebocas.Para mí, esta historia es sobre algo diferente, una especie de poder de las redes sociales que ayudamos a afinar en BuzzFeed y que puede ejercer una atracción gravitacional casi irresistible.Si no has tenido la experiencia de publicar algo en las redes sociales que se vuelve verdaderamente viral, es posible que no entiendas su profunda atracción emocional. De repente eres el centro de un universo digital y recibes más atención de más gente que nunca. A veces, el impulso de afirmación es vertiginoso y adictivo. Y, si tienes poco a lo que aferrarte, puedes perderte en todo eso.Incluso cuando buscábamos hacer que nuestro trabajo se difundiera en BuzzFeed, nos enfrentábamos a limitaciones; debíamos decir la verdad en nuestra división de noticias y apegarnos a un conjunto de valores claramente positivos en nuestra rama de entretenimiento. Sin embargo, Gionet finalmente rompió esos límites, pues parecía seguir las señales que encontraba en las redes sociales sin ningún escrúpulo. La única línea que atravesaba era su deseo de construir una audiencia. Apoyaba a Sanders antes de lanzar consignas antisemitas en Charlottesville, Virginia; luego se retractó de manera temporal de esas opiniones extremas y más tarde cometió delitos violentos para obtener vistas en YouTube. Consiguió una audiencia entre los negacionistas del coronavirus y más tarde, cuando aparentemente contrajo la enfermedad, publicó la captura de pantalla de su propia prueba positiva en Instagram con un emoticono de llanto. Semanas después, se unió al levantamiento a favor de Trump en el Capitolio.“Su política se ha guiado por las métricas de la plataforma”, reflexionó Andrew Gauthier, quien fue uno de los principales productores de video de BuzzFeed y quien más tarde trabajó para la campaña presidencial de Joe Biden. “Siempre piensas que el mal vendrá de la maldad del villano de las películas, y entonces piensas: ‘Ay, no, el mal puede empezar con chistes malos y un comportamiento nihilista que es alimentado por el refuerzo positivo en varias plataformas’”.Así que la historia de Gionet no es tan familiar como la de un joven solitario en su dormitorio que empieza a ver videos que envenenan su visión del mundo. Es la historia de un hombre que es recompensado por ser nacionalista blanco violento y que recibe la atención y la afirmación que aparentemente está desesperado por obtener.Pasamos mucho tiempo en BuzzFeed pensando en cómo optimizar nuestro contenido para una audiencia en línea; él se optimizó a sí mismo.Según un informe policial, cuando fue arrestado en Scottsdale, Arizona, el mes pasado por rociar una solución de gas lacrimógeno a un guardia, un oficial informó que Gionet le dijo que era una personalidad influyente y tenía muchos seguidores en las redes sociales. Fue puesto en libertad bajo palabra, dijo un portavoz de la policía de Scottsdale, y está a la espera de ser juzgado. Sin embargo, en el Capitolio, gritó “ACAF”, All Cops Are Friends (“Todos los policías son amigos”, aunque el significado original del acrónimo es menos amistoso).Su historia deja preguntándome qué responsabilidad tenemos quienes fuimos pioneros en el uso de las redes sociales para ofrecer información. ¿Nosotros, junto con los creadores de esas plataformas, ayudamos a abrir la caja de Pandora?No trabajé directamente con Gionet. Pero, en 2012, contraté a un escritor llamado Benny Johnson que estaba cultivando una voz que mezclaba el conocimiento de las redes sociales y la política de derecha. En ese momento pensé, erróneamente, que su visión política era simplemente conservadora. Y lo imaginé prosperando, como lo han hecho los escritores conservadores durante generaciones en las principales salas de redacción, donde cultivaban el mismo interés de sus colegas en encontrar hechos compartidos.Tardé en darme cuenta de que sus intereses no eran periodísticos, ni siquiera ideológicos, sino estéticos, emocionados por las imágenes del poder puro. En la tradición de los propagandistas autoritarios, le asombraban los edificios neoclásicos, las armas y, más tarde, las multitudes de Donald Trump. Y, después de que lo despedimos por plagio en 2014, pasó a liderar la sección de contenido del ala juvenil de Trump, Turning Point USA, y presenta un programa en Newsmax. La semana pasada, animó los intentos de revocar las elecciones (aunque se retractó cuando comenzó la violencia y luego culpó a los izquierdistas por eso). También está vendiendo sus habilidades en la “narración política viral” en la que trabajamos juntos en BuzzFeed a una generación de nuevas figuras de derecha, como la representante Lauren Boebert, quien ha llamado la atención por jurar que lleva su pistola al Congreso. (Ni Gionet ni Johnson respondieron a las consultas por correo electrónico).Mientras refinábamos la nueva práctica de las redes sociales en BuzzFeed, tardamos en darnos cuenta de que la extrema derecha nos observaba de cerca y finalmente nos imitaba. Jonah Peretti, quien fundó The Huffington Post y BuzzFeed, se sorprendió cuando Steve Bannon, quien dirigía Breitbart, le recordó a un escritor que había tomado prestadas tácticas de Peretti para su estrategia en el periodo previo a las elecciones de 2016. Bannon me dijo antes de esas elecciones, en una entrevista en la Trump Tower, que estaba sorprendido de que no hubiéramos convertido a BuzzFeed en un bastión de apoyo para Bernie Sanders, como Breitbart lo hizo con Trump. Notó, quizá de manera correcta, que el tráfico de un medio de propaganda a favor de Sanders habría excedido enormemente lo que obtuvimos por nuestra cobertura justa de las primarias demócratas.“Algunas de las cosas innovadoras que hicimos desde el principio, en la comprensión de las redes sociales y los medios digitales, han sido tomadas por los grupos de extrema derecha, los grupos racistas, los grupos MAGA”, me dijo mi exjefe, Peretti, durante una entrevista la semana pasada. No obstante, Peretti, un eterno optimista, señaló que algunos de los mismos mecanismos sociales que Gionet aprovechó también fueron cruciales para los movimientos sociales progresistas de los últimos años, desde Black Lives Matter hasta #MeToo. “La historia no ha terminado y hay una oportunidad de luchar por un buen internet”, comentó. (Nota: no doy cobertura a BuzzFeed extensamente en esta columna, más allá de apoyarme en lo que aprendí durante mi tiempo allí, y The New York Times ha exigido que no lo haga hasta que me deshaga de mis opciones de compra de acciones en la empresa).Ya estoy escuchando lo que parecen ser dos explicaciones que compiten entre sí por lo que pasó en Washington la semana pasada: que la multitud abrumadoramente blanca, a veces abiertamente racista, encarnaba la vieja y profunda maldad estadounidense; o que las redes sociales transformaron las identidades vacías de algunos estadounidenses para convertirlas en algo radical.Sin embargo, la historia de Gionet muestra cómo esas explicaciones no entran en conflicto. Un hombre que sus colegas consideraban vacío y sin rumbo convirtió su identidad en una especie de espejo de ese viejo mal estadounidense, y se ha convertido en lo que muchos estadounidenses le dijeron que querían que fuera.En un momento de la transmisión en vivo de Gionet durante el asedio al Capitolio, una voz invisible fuera de cámara advierte que Trump “se molestaría mucho” con las payasadas de los alborotadores.“No, estará contento”, respondió Gionet. “Estamos luchando por Trump”.Ben Smith es el columnista de medios. Se unió al Times en 2020, después de ocho años como editor jefe fundador de BuzzFeed News. Antes de eso, cubrió política para Politico, The New York Daily News, The New York Observer y The New York Sun. Correo electrónico: ben.smith@nytimes.com @benytAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      We Worked Together on the Internet. Last Week, He Stormed the Capitol.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesHouse Moves to Remove TrumpHow Impeachment Might WorkBiden Focuses on CrisesCabinet PicksAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storythe media equationWe Worked Together on the Internet. Last Week, He Stormed the Capitol.At BuzzFeed, we followed the signals of social media. A young employee followed them all the way to Charlottesville and Capitol Hill.Loyalists to President Trump at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.Credit…Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via ShutterstockJan. 10, 2021Updated 9:43 p.m. ETHe fit in as well as anyone did at our Los Angeles studio, a place full of ambitious misfits with an unusual gift. They knew how to make web videos people wanted to watch.His real name was Anthime Joseph Gionet, though he preferred others. His value to BuzzFeed was clear: He’d do anything for the Vine, the short video platform that had a brief cultural moment before being crushed by Instagram and Snapchat in 2017.Once, he poured a gallon of milk on his face and a clip of it drew millions of views, back when mostly harmless stunts amused millions of American viewers on the platform.He was, in that way, a natural for BuzzFeed when he arrived in the spring of 2015, where I was editor in chief, overseeing the website. Mr. Gionet was hired to run the Vine account for our video operation, and his job mostly consisted of editing down to six seconds the silly, fun videos his colleagues produced. Within months, he took over a BuzzFeed Twitter account, too, drawing on his same intuition for what kind of video people would share.We were better than anyone in those days at making things for social media, mostly lists and quizzes and short videos, but also occasionally spectacular live streams, most famously the one where two of my colleagues exploded a watermelon, one rubber band at a time.And so the language I heard from Mr. Gionet, now 33, on his livestream last Wednesday was familiar. “We’ve got over 10,000 people live, watching, let’s go!” he said excitedly. “Hit that follow button — I appreciate you guys.”Mr. Gionet was standing inside the trashed office of Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, streaming from one of the few platforms yet to ban him, alongside other Trump loyalists who played with the telephone receiver and draped themselves over the furniture. It seemed an apt conclusion to a recent career arc that some might see as trolling or internet pranks, but is probably best described as performative violence.Anthime Joseph Gionet last Wednesday in a scene from his livestream.Credit…LiveLeakAfter I saw Mr. Gionet, I called up some of my old colleagues, who recalled him with a mixture of perplexity and repulsion. He was sensitive and almost desperate to be liked, they said, once getting extremely upset when someone made fun of his thick mustache and blond mullet. Two of his closest friends at the office at the time had different ethnic backgrounds and gender identities than he did, and they sometimes bonded over a sense of being outsiders. One of those friends remembered him as a sad character who didn’t really express political views beyond the broadly bro-ey and insensitive culture of Vine, and who confided that he was haunted by a lonely childhood in Alaska. He seemed, three of them said, to be missing something — to be hollow inside.As the 2016 election took hold, he started to flirt with a political persona. He first put a Bernie Sanders portrait on his desk, two former colleagues said. Then, he moved on to wearing MAGA hats around the office, which raised eyebrows among his more progressive, if fairly apolitical, co-workers, though that was when some people still imagined the far right could be “ironic.”When he left BuzzFeed later that year to work as the “tour manager” for Milo Yiannopoulos, a darling of the racist and anti-Semitic “alt-right,” colleagues were momentarily shocked. Then, they scrolled through Mr. Gionet’s Twitter account, where his increasingly vile statements were getting him retweets from far-right figures, and realized that they shouldn’t have been.Still, it’s not clear what Mr. Gionet actually believes, if anything. And really, I’m not sure I care.This isn’t a sympathetic profile of a young man gone wrong. I can’t muster much pity for a guy who, before he was attacking his Capitol, spent his time shooting some kind of bottled irritant (he called it “content spray”) into the eyes of innocent people for YouTube views and shouting at store clerks who asked him to wear a mask.To me, this story is about something different, a sort of social media power that we helped sharpen at BuzzFeed that can exert an almost irresistible gravitational pull.If you haven’t had the experience of posting something on social media that goes truly viral, you may not understand its profound emotional attraction. You’re suddenly the center of a digital universe, getting more attention from more people than you ever have. The rush of affirmation can be giddy, and addictive. And if you have little else to hold on to, you can lose yourself to it.Even as we sought to make our work spread at BuzzFeed, we faced constraints — by truth in our news division, by hewing to a broadly positive set of values on our entertainment side. But Mr. Gionet ultimately broke loose of those boundaries, seeming to follow the signals he found on social media without any scruple. The only through line was his desire to build an audience. He was boosting Bernie Sanders before he was chanting anti-Semitic slogans in Charlottesville, Va., then temporarily recanting those extreme views and later committing violent crimes to get views on YouTube. He built an audience among coronavirus deniers and then, when he apparently contracted the disease, posted the screenshot of his own positive test to Instagram with a tearful emoji. A few weeks later, he joined the pro-Trump uprising in the Capitol.“His politics have been guided by platform metrics,” reflected Andrew Gauthier, who was a top video producer at BuzzFeed and later worked for Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential campaign. “You always think that evil is going to come from movie villain evil, and then you’re like — oh no, evil can just start with bad jokes and nihilistic behavior that is fueled by positive reinforcement on various platforms.”And so Mr. Gionet’s story isn’t quite the familiar one of a lonely young man in his bedroom falling down a rabbit hole of videos that poison his worldview. It’s the story of a man being rewarded for being a violent white nationalist, and getting the attention and affirmation that he’s apparently desperate for.We spent a lot of time at BuzzFeed thinking about how to optimize our content for an online audience; he optimized himself.When he was arrested in Scottsdale, Ariz., last month for spraying mace into the eyes of a bouncer, an officer reported that Mr. Gionet “informed me that he was a ‘influencer’ and had a large following on social media,” according to a police report. He was released on his own recognizance, a Scottsdale police spokesman said, and is awaiting trial. Nonetheless, in the Capitol, he yelled “A.C.A.F.” — All Cops Are Friends (though the original meaning of the acronym is less friendly).His story leaves me wondering what share of blame those of us who pioneered the use of social media to deliver information deserve at this moment. Did we, along with the creators of those platforms, help open Pandora’s box?I didn’t work directly with Mr. Gionet. But in 2012, I did hire a writer named Benny Johnson who was cultivating a voice that blended social media savvy and right-wing politics. I thought, wrongly, of his politics at the time as just conservative. And I imagined him thriving, as conservative writers have done for generations in mainstream newsrooms, where they shared their colleagues’ interest in finding shared facts.I was slow to realize that his interests weren’t journalistic, or even ideological, as much as they were aesthetic, thrilled by the imagery of raw power. In the tradition of authoritarian propagandists, he was awed by neoclassical buildings, guns and, later, Donald Trump’s crowds. And, after we fired him for plagiarism in 2014, he went on to lead the content arm of Mr. Trump’s youth wing, Turning Point USA, and host a show on Newsmax. Last week, he was cheerleading attempts to overturn the election (though he pulled back when the violence began and later blamed leftists for it). He’s also selling his skills in the “viral political storytelling” that we worked together on at BuzzFeed to a generation of new right-wing figures like Representative Lauren Boebert, who has won attention for vowing to bring her handgun to work in Congress. (Neither Mr. Gionet nor Mr. Johnson responded to email inquiries.)While we were refining the new practice of social media at BuzzFeed, we were slow to realize that the far right was watching closely and eventually imitating us. Jonah Peretti, who founded The Huffington Post as well as BuzzFeed, was surprised when Steve Bannon, who ran Breitbart, recalled to a writer that he’d borrowed elements of his strategy from Mr. Peretti in the run-up to the 2016 election. Mr. Bannon told me before that election, in an interview in Trump Tower, that he was surprised we hadn’t turned BuzzFeed to pure Bernie Sanders boosterism, as Breitbart did for Donald Trump. He noted, probably correctly, that the traffic for a pro-Sanders propaganda outlet would have greatly exceeded what we got for fair coverage of the Democratic primary.“Some of the innovative things we did early on, in understanding social media and digital media, have been taken up by alt-right groups, racist groups, MAGA groups,” my old boss, Mr. Peretti, told me in an interview last week. But Mr. Peretti, an eternal optimist, noted that some of the same social mechanisms that Mr. Gionet exploited were also crucial to the sweeping progressive social movements of the last few years, from Black Lives Matter to #MeToo. “The story’s not done and there’s an opportunity to fight for a good internet,” he said. (Disclosure: I don’t cover BuzzFeed extensively in this column, beyond leaning on what I learned during my time there, and The Times has required that I not do so until I divest my stock options in the company.)I’m already hearing what seem to be two competing explanations of what happened in Washington last week: that the overwhelmingly white, sometimes overtly racist, mob embodied old, deep unexpurgated American evil; or that social media reshaped some Americans’ blank slate identities into something radical.But Mr. Gionet’s story shows how those explanations don’t really conflict. A man his colleagues saw as empty and driftless turned his identity into a kind of a mirror of that old American evil, and has become what many Americans told him they wanted him to be.At one point in Mr. Gionet’s livestream during the siege of the Capitol, an unseen voice off camera warns that President Trump “would be very upset” with the antics of the rioters.“No, he’ll be happy,” Mr. Gionet responded. “We’re fighting for Trump.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Our President Wants Us Here’: The Mob That Stormed the Capitol

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionliveLatest UpdatesMoves to ImpeachHow impeachment Might WorkBiden Focuses on CrisesHow Mob Stormed CapitolCrowds of Trump supporters swarmed past barricades and breached the Capitol Building on Wednesday.Credit…Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg‘Our President Wants Us Here’: The Mob That Stormed the CapitolThey came from around the country with different affiliations — QAnon, Proud Boys, elected officials, everyday Americans — united by one allegiance.Crowds of Trump supporters swarmed past barricades and breached the Capitol Building on Wednesday.Credit…Victor J. Blue/BloombergSupported byContinue reading the main storyDan Barry, Mike McIntire and Jan. 9, 2021Updated 7:10 p.m. ETIt was the table setter for what would come, with nearly 2,000 people gathering in Washington on Tuesday evening for a “Rally to Save America.” Speaker after angry speaker stoked stolen-election conspiracy theories and name-checked sworn enemies: Democrats and weak Republicans, Communists and Satanists.Still, the crowd seemed a bit giddy at the prospect of helping President Trump reverse the result of the election — though at times the language evoked a call to arms. “It is time for war,” one speaker declared.As the audience thinned, groups of young men emerged in Kevlar vests and helmets, a number of them holding clubs and knives. Some were aligned with the neofascist Proud Boys; others with the Three Percenters, a far-right militia group.“We’re not backing down anymore,” said a man with fresh stitches on his head. “This is our country.”That night reflected a disconcerting mix of free speech and certain menace; of everyday Americans supporting their president and extremists prepared to commit violence for him. All had assembled in answer to Mr. Trump’s repeated appeals to attend a march to the Capitol the next day that he promised would be “wild.”A rally Tuesday night set the stage for the mayhem the next day.Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York TimesIt was. By Wednesday afternoon, a narrow group of Trump supporters — some exuberant, some hellbent — had been storm-tossed together into infamy. A mob overran the nation’s Capitol, as lawmakers hid in fear. Wholesale vandalism. Tear gas. Gunfire. A woman dead; an officer dead; many injured. Chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”But the insurrection failed.It had been the culmination of a sustained assault by the president and his enablers on fact-based reality, one that began long before the November election but took on a fevered urgency as the certainty of Mr. Trump’s defeat solidified. For years, he had demonized political opponents and the media and egged on thuggish behavior at his rallies.Since losing to Joseph R. Biden Jr., he had mounted a campaign of lies that the presidency was being stolen from him, and that marching on the Capitol was the last chance to stop it. To many Americans, it looked like one more feel-good rally to salve Mr. Trump’s wounded ego, but some of his supporters heard something altogether different — a battle cry.Now, dozens of them have been arrested — including an armed Alabama man who had Molotov cocktails in his car and a West Virginia lawmaker charged with illegally entering the Capitol — and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is asking for help in identifying those who “actively instigated violence.” Many participants in the march are frantically working to erase digital evidence of their presence for fear of losing a job or being harassed online.Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has been broadly condemned and cut off from his social media megaphones, as a new administration prepares to take power.Kevin Haag, 67, a retired landscaper from North Carolina who ascended the Capitol steps as the crowd surged forward, said he did not go inside and disapproved of those who did. Even so, he said he would never forget the sense of empowerment as he looked down over thousands of protesters. It felt so good, he said, to show people: “We are here. See us! Notice us! Pay attention!”Now, back home after several days of reflection, Mr. Haag, an evangelical Christian, wonders whether he went too far. “Should I get down on my knees and ask for forgiveness?” he said in an interview. “I am asking myself that question.”But the experience seemed to have only hardened the resolve of others. Couy Griffin, 47, a Republican county commissioner from New Mexico, spoke of organizing another Capitol rally soon — one that could result in “blood running out of that building” — in a video he later posted to the Facebook page of his group, Cowboys for Trump.Couy Griffin, a Republican county commissioner from New Mexico and organizer of the group Cowboys for Trump, said a future Capitol rally could have “blood running out of that building.”CreditCredit…Cowboys for Trump via YouTube“At the end of the day, you mark my word, we will plant our flag on the desk of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,” he said. He paused before adding, “And Donald J. Trump if it boils down to it.”Plans take shape online: ‘Pack a crowbar’The advance publicity for the “March for America” had been robust. Beyond the repeated promotions in tweets by the president and his allies, the upcoming event was cheered on social media, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.But woven through many of the messages to stand up for Mr. Trump — and, if possible, block the congressional certification of the election he claimed he had won — was language that flirted with aggression, even violence.For example, the term “Storm the Capitol” was mentioned 100,000 times in the 30 days preceding Jan. 6, according to Zignal Labs, a media insights company. Many of these mentions appeared in viral tweet threads that discussed the possible storming of the Capitol and included details on how to enter the building.To followers of QAnon, the convoluted collection of conspiracy theories that falsely claims the country is dominated by deep-state bureaucrats and Democrats who worship Satan, the word “storm” had particular resonance. Adherents have often referred to a coming storm, after which Mr. Trump would preside over a new government order.In online discussions, some QAnon followers and militia groups explored which weapons and tools to bring. “Pack a crowbar,” read one message posted on Gab, a social media refuge for the far right. In another discussion, someone asked, “Does anyone know if the windows on the second floor are reinforced?”Still, the many waves of communication did not appear to result in a broadly organized plan to take action. It is also unclear if any big money or coordinated fund-raising was behind the mobilization, though some Trump supporters appear to have found funds through opaque online networks to help pay for transportation to the rally.“Patriots, if you need financial help getting to DC to support President Trump on January 6th, please go to my website,” a QAnon adherent who identified himself as Thad Williams, of Tampa, Fla., posted on Twitter three days before the event. He said he had raised more than $27,000. (After the Capitol assault, the money transfer companies PayPal and Stripe shut down his accounts. Mr. Williams did not return a phone message, but the website for his organization, Joy In Liberty, said it had given out $30,000 to fund transportation for “deserving patriots.”)Trump supporters traveling together on an overnight bus trip from Massachusetts to Washington.Credit…Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOther rally goers set up fund-raising accounts through the online service GoFundMe; Buzzfeed News cited at least a dozen, and GoFundMe has since closed them.One of the most conspicuous figures in the Capitol assault — a bare-chested man with a painted face, flag-draped spear and fur hat with horns — was linked to the online fund-raising. A familiar presence at pro-Trump rallies in Phoenix, Jacob Anthony Chansley, a 33-year-old voice-over actor, is known as the Q Shaman. He started a GoFundMe account in December to help pay for transportation to another Trump demonstration in Washington, but the effort reportedly netted him just $10. Mr. Chansley retweeted Mr. Williams’s funding offer on Jan. 3, but it is unclear whether he benefited from it.Jacob Anthony Chansley, center, a QAnon adherent known as the Q Shaman.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesOn Tuesday, the eve of the march, a couple thousand people gathered at Freedom Plaza in Washington for “The Rally to Save America” event, permitted as “The Rally to Revival.” The disparate interests of those attending were reflected by the speakers: well-known evangelists, alt-right celebrities (Alex Jones of Infowars) and Trump loyalists, including his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and the self-described Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone, both of whom he had pardoned.The speakers repeatedly encouraged the attendees to see themselves as foot soldiers fighting to save the country. Americans, Mr. Flynn said, were ready to “bleed” for freedom.Roger Stone, a Trump ally who was convicted of lying to Congress and later pardoned, spoke at the rally Tuesday night.Credit…Samuel Corum/Getty Images“The members of the House of Representatives, the members of the United States Senate, those of you who are feeling weak tonight, those of you that don’t have the moral fiber in your body, get some tonight,” he said. “Because tomorrow, we the people are going to be here and we want you to know we will not stand for a lie.”Then came tomorrow.Inside, the Capitol descends into chaosIt was President Trump’s turn. At about noon on Wednesday, he emerged from a viewing party in a tent, strode onto a stage set up in a park just south of the White House and, for more than an hour, delivered a stream of inflammatory words.He exhorted the crowd of more than 8,000 to march to the Capitol to pressure lawmakers: “Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”“You’ll never take back our country with weakness,” the president told supporters, and urged them to march to the Capitol.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesEven before he had finished speaking, people started moving east toward the Capitol. The crowd included supporters who had come by caravan from across the country, Trump flags rippling in the wind, as well as people so moved by the president’s appeal for support that they had jumped into their cars and driven for hours.The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesUpdated Jan. 8, 2021, 10:32 p.m. ETMore national security officials resign from a White House in turmoil.Josh Hawley faces blowback for role in spurious challenge of election results.Read the draft of a leading article of impeachment against Trump.They traveled from various corners of resentment in 21st-century America. Whether motivated by a sense of economic disenfranchisement or distrust of government, by bigotry, or conspiracy or a belief that Mr. Trump is God’s way of preparing for the Rapture, they shared a fealty to the president.Now the moment had come, a moment that twinned the thrilling with the ominous.“I’m happy, sad, afraid, excited,” said Scott Cyganiewicz, 56, a floor installer from Gardner, Mass., as he watched the throngs of Trump loyalists streaming through the streets. “It’s an emotional roller coaster.”American flags and Trump paraphernalia mingled in the crowd.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesMr. Cyganiewicz said he was on his way out of town. He did not want to be around if violence broke out. Only a portion of the broader crowd continued onto the Capitol grounds.Credit…Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via ShutterstockSoon word spread that Vice President Mike Pence — who would oversee the pro forma count by Congress of the electoral votes for certification — had announced he would not be complicit in the president’s efforts to overturn the election.“You can imagine the emotion that ran through people when we get that word,” said Mr. Griffin, the county commissioner from New Mexico, in a video he posted on social media. “And then we get down to the Capitol and they have all the inauguration set up for Joe Biden.”He added, “What do you think was going to happen?”Many in the crowd spoke portentously of violence — or even of another Civil War. A man named Jeff, who said he was an off-duty police officer from York County, Pa., said he didn’t know what would happen after he and his wife Amy reached the Capitol. But he felt ready to participate if something were to erupt.“There’s a lot of people here willing to take orders,” he said. “If the orders are given, the people will rise up.”By the time the bulk of the crowd reached the building, its leading edge had metastasized into an angry mob. A man barked into a megaphone: “Keep moving forward! Fight for Trump, fight for Trump!”“Military Tribunals! Hang them!” shouted someone wearing a cowboy hat.“Arrest Congress!” screamed a woman in a flag scarf.People surged past a few Capitol Police officers to bang on the windows and doors. Many eyewitness accounts and videos have since emerged that convey the pandemonium as hundreds of people overwhelmed the inadequate law-enforcement presence. In several instances of role reversal, for example, rioters are seen firing what appeared to be pepper spray at police officers trying to prevent mobs from getting closer to the Capitol Building.Crowds swarming the Capitol Building were met with tear gas.Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York TimesAfter a few minutes, the crowd broke through and began streaming into an empty office. Glass shards crunched under people’s feet, as the scene descended into chaos.Some stood in awe, while others took action. As one group prepared to break through an entryway, a Trump supporter raised a wine bottle and shouted, “Whose way?” To which the crowd responded, “Our way!” Confusion reigned. “Hey what’s the Senate side?” said a tall man in camouflage and sunglasses. “Where’s the Senate? Can somebody Google it?”All the while, members of The Oath Keepers, a self-proclaimed citizens’ militia, seemed to be standing guard — for the transgressors. They wore olive-drab shirts, helmets and patches on their upper-left sleeves that said, “Guardians of the Republic” and “Not on Our Watch.”American flags flapped beside “Trump 2020” flags, and people wearing “Make America Great Again” regalia moved beside people wearing anti-Semitic slogans. Chants of “Hell No, Never Joe” and “Stop the Steal” broke out, as did strains of “God Bless America” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.”Derrick Evans of West Virginia, who just two months before had been elected as a Republican state delegate, wandered the halls of the Capitol Building, filming himself and joining in the occasional chant. At one point he shouted, “Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!”Derrick Evans, a Republican state delegate in West Virginia, has been charged in connection with the events.Credit… Outside the building, Mr. Griffin, who was once photographed wearing a 10-gallon hat and sitting across from President Trump in the Oval Office, was now gleefully addressing the camera from atop one of the crowded terraces, declaring it “a great day for America.” Asserting that “we came peacefully,” he was interrupted by a man wearing a jacket with a hand-grenade logo, who said, “Believe me, we are well armed if we need to be.”Amid the cheers and whoops of excitement were questions of what to do next. Some can be heard hunting for specific members of congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose office was broken into by several people. She and other lawmakers were hiding for fear of their safety.One image showed a trim man moving through the Senate chamber in full paramilitary regalia: camouflage uniform, Kevlar vest, a mask and baseball cap obscuring his face. He carried a stack of flex cuffs — the plastic restraints used by police. The image raised a question yet to be answered: Why carry restraints if not to use them?Crowds streaming into the Capitol. “We wait and take orders from our president,” a man could be heard saying on a livestream video. Credit…Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSeveral rioters wielded fire extinguishers. One stood on a balcony on the Capitol building’s west side, spraying down on police officers trying to fend off the crowd. Others carried them into the building itself, one into Statuary Hall and another onto the steps outside the Senate Chamber, spraying in the direction of journalists and police officers.“Our president wants us here,” a man can be heard saying during a livestream video that showed him standing within the Capitol building. “We wait and take orders from our president.”Despite his followers’ hopes and expectations, President Trump was missing in action as rioters rampaged through the halls of Congress. It would be hours before he eventually surfaced in a somewhat subdued videotaped appeal for them to leave.“We have to have peace,” he said. “So go home, we love you, you’re very special.”Trump supporters trying to break through a police barrier.Credit…John Minchillo/Associated PressSome of Mr. Trump’s supporters expressed frustration, even disbelief, that the president seemed to have given up after they had put themselves on the line for him.Mr. Haag, the retired landscaper, was among the disappointed. Still, he said, the movement will continue even without Mr. Trump.“We are representing the 74 million people who got disenfranchised,” he said. “We are still out here. We are a force to be reckoned with. We are not going away.”One man wandered away from the Capitol in the evening gloom, yelling angrily through a megaphone that Mr. Pence was a coward and, now, Mr. Trump had told everyone “to just go home.”“Well, he can go home to his Mar-a-Lago estate,” the man shouted, adding, “We gotta go back to our businesses that are closed!”As some rioters face fallout, others mull a repeatIn the aftermath of what Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, called a “failed insurrection,” scores of those who responded to the incendiary words of the president now face a reckoning.A chief target of investigators will be whoever struck Brian Sicknick of the Capitol Police with a fire extinguisher; the 42-year-old officer died Thursday after being injured in the riot. At the same time, authorities are investigating the fatal police shooting of Ashli Babbitt, 35, an Air Force veteran who had joined those breaching the Capitol.Richard Barnett, an Arkansas man pictured in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, has been charged with a federal crime.Credit…Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via ShutterstockAmong those charged so far with federal crimes are Mr. Chansley, the so-called Q Shaman; Mr. Evans, the West Virginia lawmaker — who resigned on Saturday; and Richard Barnett, an Arkansas man who was depicted in a widely circulated photograph sitting with his foot on a desk in Ms. Pelosi’s office.Meanwhile, Mr. Griffin, the commissioner from New Mexico who runs Cowboys for Trump, saw his group’s Twitter account suspended and calls for his resignation.The anger, resentment and conspiracy-laced distrust that led to Wednesday’s mayhem did not dissipate with Thursday’s dawn. Along with the smashed furniture in the Capitol Building, there were smashed expectations of a continued Trump presidency, of lawmakers held to account, of holy prophecies fulfilled.Signs of potential violence have already surfaced. Twitter, which terminated Mr. Trump’s account on Friday, noted that “plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating” online, including “a proposed secondary attack on the U.S. Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17.”Shattered glass and other remnants of the day.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesThe urge for more civil unrest is being discussed in the usual squalid corners of the internet. Private chat groups on Gab and Parler are peppered with talk of a possible “Million Militia March” on Jan. 20 that would disrupt the presidential inauguration of Mr. Biden.There is chatter about ride shares, where to find lodging in the Washington area — and what to bring. Baseball bats, perhaps, or assault rifles.“We took the building once,” one commenter posted, “we can take it again.”Reporting was contributed by More