Trump Doesn’t Need the Proud Boys Anymore

Whether protesting Covid lockdowns, attending school board meetings or confronting Black Lives Matter protesters, the far-right Proud Boys were always there to support Donald Trump’s first term.

When Trump left office in 2021, the group’s leaders were languishing in prison for their roles in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. With infighting reportedly destabilizing the movement, it seemed the group’s glory days were behind it.

But Trump’s return a year ago and the release of all prisoners on January 6 indicated that a Proud Boy return could be on the cards. And while there have been intermittent signs that the group may be returning to peak activity levels, the reality is that Trump’s militarization of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) and the Border Patrol, as well as the administration’s embrace of white nationalist rhetoric, has left the Proud Boys without a role to play. The Proud Boys have little incentive to leave their homes when heavily armed representatives of the Trump administration are already fighting with left-wing protesters.

This has never been more evident than over the past week, as anti-ICE protesters have flooded the streets of cities across the country since a masked federal agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.

Instead of taking to the streets to confront protesters and defend Trump’s hard-line immigration crackdown, the Proud Boys have been relegated to posting inflammatory memes while promising to provide personal safety to right-wing influencers who follow every aspect of ICE’s anti-immigrant raids.

A WIRED review of hundreds of Telegram channels run by Proud Boy chapters across the country, as well as other far-right groups and militias, reveals there are no public calls for members to mobilize and defend ICE against protesters.

Instead, members of Telegram channels are posting deeply misogynistic and homophobic images, videos and AI-generated content featuring Good and his wife, with one extremist expert telling WIRED that channels have been almost stunned in recent days in response to the shootings.

“They are very excited about what is happening, because for many of them, [ICE and the DHS are] “There is no reason for the Proud Boys to be on the ground,” says Wendy Via, co-founder and president of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “When law enforcement seems so willing to abuse their powers, why bother.”

Proud Boy channels, in between celebrations of Good’s death, are also praising ICE’s work in the city.

“You are an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Five and a half years after George Floyd, in the same city, you overpower a prisoner with your knee. Imagine being based on that,” wrote a member of a North Carolina chapter of the group known as the Cape Fear Proud Boys in a Telegram post this week.

There were, however, some promises of action. After right-wing influencers Nick Sortor and Cam Higby claimed they were attacked while filming content in Minneapolis this week, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio claimed he wanted to help. “I contacted both [Nick] and Cam with an offer of personal details,” Tarrio, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sent to prison for his role in the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, wrote Monday on We have a great solution for both of them,” he added.