MORE THINKING ON THE PROUD BOYS

Michael Lumish

I find myself increasingly curious about the so-called "Proud Boys."

Primarily I am interested in their use by others in the current Presidential campaign. The mainstream media almost always refers to them as violent and "extreme right-wing" and racist. They portray the group, small as it is, as a White Supremacist threat that is deeply antisemitic.

The founder of the group, Gavin McInnes did, in fact, do a satirical on-air bit entitled, "10 Things I Hate About The Jews." It is thus not difficult to see how many people would think him antisemitic.

Attached in my first comment below is a discussion from about a year ago between McInnes and his producer at Vice Media wherein they chew over the accusations of antisemitism.

Leaving aside for the moment questions specifically around antisemitism, I want to look at what they say about themselves. In Proud Boy Magazine, which seems to be their official outlet, they list the following tenets of their belief system. Let's go through them one-by-one and see how they may see themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 representing "extreme left-wing" and 10 representing "extreme right-wing."

{These judgments are my own. Naturally, your mileage may vary.}

1) Minimal Government (7)

This is a standard tenet of right-leaning ideology in the United States and, in and of itself, cannot be taken as "extremist."

2) Maximum Freedom (5)

This is an idea that could easily be assigned to the counterculture of the 1960s and contemporary libertarians alike.

3) Anti-Political Correctness (7)

They get no argument from me there.

4) Anti-Drug War (5)

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and know not a soul who favors anything akin to Reagan's "War on Drugs." This is not just a libertarian view, but a left-wing view.

5) Closed Borders (8)

The Proud Boys are not particularly fond of immigration. My only question is if they are opposed to illegal immigration or to all immigration. The first position is well within respectable American discussion. The second is not.

6) Anti-Racial Guilt (3)

Indeed, holding people responsible for the alleged guilt of the forbears and according to skin color is entirely opposed to the ideals of Martin Luther King, Jr. and was, until fairly recently, a distinctly left-leaning value.

7) Anti-Racism (5)

And speaking of MLK, Jr., anti-racism has been the signature issue of the western progressive-left since at least Brown v. Board of Education (1954). This is not a position associated with the extreme right-wing. In fact, pretty much all Americans, left, right, and center, oppose racism.

8) Pro-Free Speech (1st Amendment) (5)

One of the most important aspects of the Movement of the 1960s was the free speech movement kicked off by Mario Savio at UCAL Berkeley in the early years of that decade.

9) Pro-Gun Rights (2nd Amendment) (7)

Yes, well, it is in the Constitution, now, isn't it? Pro-gun rights is generally considered a right-wing stance, but not an extreme right-wing stance. It is part of the typical American political conversation.

10) Glorifying the Entrepreneur (5)

It hardly gets more American than that. This is a common North American value that is usually honored throughout the right-wing, the center, and most of the Democratic Party. This stance is center/center-right.

11) Venerating the Housewife (9)

This is absolutely Father Knows Best territory. It is directly out of sentimental 1950s Americana and, needless to say, it is sexist as hell. This is their most far-right stance. This is extremist far-right, in a Western contemporary context.

And finally:

12) Reinstating a Spirit of Western Chauvinism (7)

I love this notion in its various connotations and aspects. McInnes, as a right-wing political gadfly and humorist -- who may not actually have that much to do with the Proud Boys these days -- used the word "chauvinist" to yank the feminist chain.

However, leaving that antifeminist elbow aside, the idea of "Western Chauvinism" is a call to classical liberalism. By "Western Chauvinism," unless I am being too generous, the PB's mean the tradition of political liberalism as derived from Magna Carta, enunciated in the Constitution of the United States and coming to its height with the Civil Rights Movement under MLK, JR.

So, on a scale of 1 to 10 just where do the Proud Boys see themselves politically? My number is 6.

If you add the numbers above you get 73 as a total out of 12 official ideological tenets. 73 divided by 12 is 6. And that position on a scale of 1 to 10 is not extreme.

Of course, not being a sociologist, I am using a very crude metric, but I think that it is probably reasonably accurate as to how the group sees itself.

None of this is to suggest that the Proud Boys live up to their own ideals. In truth, I've never met anyone who has. Nor is it to suggest that individual PBs contradict any number of the tenets listed above.

But, again, my main question concerning these people is why their advancement into the media spotlight during this political moment?

Whose purpose do they serve?

And please feel free to tell me where you disagree with my numerical assignments.