Report: Right-Wing Militia Groups ‘Pose A Serious Threat’ To Voters
Militia groups “pose a serious threat to the safety and security of American voters,” particularly in the nation’s swing states, according to a joint report from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) and MilitiaWatch.
Over the past several months, private militias “have become more assertive,” the two organizations found in a report published Thursday, titled “Standing By: Right-Wing Militia Groups & The US Election.” The report cites kidnapping plots targeting elected officials and interventions in protests throughout the country. Parts of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Oregon are at the highest risk of increased militia activity around the election, it says, while parts of North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, California and New Mexico are at a moderate risk. The report identifies the Three Percenters, Patriot Prayer, Proud Boys and Boogaloo Bois as groups that pose a “high” or “very high” potential for violence.
The report’s authors wrote that there’s been “a major realignment” of U.S. militia activity. While these groups have traditionally been anti-government, several of them have largely rallied behind a single political leader: Donald Trump. The president has urged his supporters to go to polling sites during this election “and watch very carefully,” a directive likely to inspire far-right militia members, who see themselves as soldiers in a civil war. Asked to condemn the Proud Boys at a debate last month, Trump instead told them to “stand back and stand by,” a directive the neo-fascist group publicly interpreted as marching orders.
When militia members were arrested earlier this month for plotting to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, the president seemed to delight in their animus toward her, encouraging a “lock her up” chant at a campaign rally in the state days later. His son Donald Trump Jr. has asked “every able-bodied man, woman to join...
